The Reality of Business

Executive Coaching: How Does It Work? Where Has It Come From? Transforming The Workplace

• Bob Morrell and Jeremy Blake • Season 6 • Episode 6

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Ever wondered how you can transform a toxic workplace relationship into a thriving collaboration? 

In this episode, we unravel the example case of Maureen and examine how executive coaching can turn around even the most challenging team dynamics. We delve into the core principles of coaching as a client-centered, goal-driven partnership that stands apart from traditional training methods. By exploring the evolution of coaching practices from their mid-20th century roots to today's sophisticated blend of psychology and productivity enhancement, we shed light on the powerful impact coaching can have on personal and professional growth.
 
Trace the fascinating journey of business coaching from the 1980s to the present day, where concepts borrowed from sports performance have reshaped corporate strategies. We highlight key milestones like the founding of the International Coaching Federation in 1995 and dissect the nuanced differences between coaching and mentoring. Gain insights into how modern neuroscience and positive psychology are revolutionizing coaching practices, fostering mental health, engagement, and happiness in the workplace. This episode provides a comprehensive look at how these advancements are making waves in executive coaching today.
 
We explore the mixed receptiveness among coachees and the challenges of helping individuals who resist change or are uncomfortable with self-reflection. Learn why continuous growth and pushing beyond comfort zones are essential for sustained success and how long-term investment in coaching can drive significant organisational benefits. We discuss the financial aspects of coaching and advocate for broader access through technology. For those seeking to explore further, we recommend influential figures like Timothy Gallwey and Marshall Goldsmith, particularly Goldsmith's innovative 360-degree feedback concept. Join us for an enlightening discussion on the ever-evolving world of executive coaching.

For more info, free resources, useful content & our blog posts, please visit realitytraining.com.

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Speaker 1:

and how would your team respond to that?

Speaker 2:

well, that's a good question actually. Um, I think most of them would be okay, but I think I'd be concerned about um maureen and her reaction so you've said most and you've said maureen, do you mean one?

Speaker 1:

one person?

Speaker 2:

well, of course it's maureen, isn't it? I mean, she's mean, she's been a thorn in my side for five years and I don't know what I can do about that relationship really, but everything I ever do is sort of couched in an idea of what she will like and won't like, which I know sounds bizarre, but that's just always the way it's been.

Speaker 2:

She speaks highly of you what has to change, whether you're changing something or you have a different kind of conversation with her well, maybe it's time for that, because we do have to make some changes and there has to be a kind of concerted effort from everyone. But I think if we didn't have Maureen on board, then I think we'd be back to where we started very quickly and by that you mean a better place what do you mean?

Speaker 1:

you said you'd be back to where you started if you didn't have her no, no, I mean if we didn't have her on board to do the changes we need to make well yes, oh, I see. So you're valuing her in another sense she, you know she's effective.

Speaker 2:

We just, we just don't see eye to eye on just about anything and I think that gets in the way of, um, you know, proper advancement so, by your tone and the way you said, we'd be back to where we started, not a good place with maurie.

Speaker 1:

But you don't see eye to eye and everything. If you could choose the situation that you wish to have, that is not just good for you but for the entire organization really, and especially the whole team, which is largely everybody. What is the right thing to do?

Speaker 2:

well, I think I need to reassess my approach to maureen, actually, because there have been times in the past when she's been great and we've worked together and things have gone well, and I think I've just, uh, avoided it and I think I need to, I you know, re re-approach her actually.

Speaker 1:

So if you're serious about that, should we spend the rest of this conversation absolutely focusing on how you might go about doing that? Yep, let's do that.

Speaker 2:

All right.

Speaker 1:

Good day, how are you, Bobby boy?

Speaker 2:

I'm not too bad, thank you. Listeners who are familiar with my voice will be aware that I sound like a public health warning. I don't know why. I've got an immense cold and that's made me slightly nasal, but apart from that I'm well. How are you?

Speaker 1:

sir, yeah, fine, I've just had family all staying, and so that was lovely. But also we repossess our home again, which is nice.

Speaker 2:

Very nice indeed. So this episode is all about executive coaching, and this is something that listeners will hopefully be aware that we do quite a lot of. So we have projects with organizations where sometimes we'll have a whole layer of senior managers that we will do executive coaching with, and it's a subject that is quite interesting. You and I have been trained in it, and we have a number of coaches now on the books, including Anne and Jenny, and so we thought it was time to do an episode about this really interesting subject. And you've gone away and you've been looking into it in some depth, haven't you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have, and I'd love you to be the listener in some ways, of trying to think about it. So if I say to you what is coaching, and we do the Edward de Bono technique called eyes of a child, an 11 year old says Uncle, trying to think about it. So if I say to you what is coaching, and we do the Edward de Bono technique called Eyes of a Child, an 11-year-old says Uncle Bobby. I heard this bloke talking about doing coaching at work. What's coaching? What would you say it is.

Speaker 2:

Well, my first response would be you're too young to have to worry about that. No, I'm joking, that's good. I would say. Coaching is helping individuals to reach important decisions about their work and their lives through inspiring conversation.

Speaker 1:

Jolly nice.

Speaker 2:

Not bad.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think we'll add to that only a couple of bits is that it's certainly not training. No, you're not telling the person what to do. As the coach, there's the and the coachee. It's client-centered, gold orientated, and the two of them work together to help achieve some kind of goal or outcome. And we'll look at how it's changed over the years and I think at the start, as bob said, we're looking more executive coaching. But there is also life coaching, career coaching, performance coaching.

Speaker 2:

There's actually little splinter fields coming out of what was just once coaching, sure, and I suppose the other thing is that you know, coaching and executive coaching are particular business interventions, yes, or individuals and sometimes groups. But I think the other side of it is, as individuals and as we become more aware of our own brains and how they work, then this type of conversation actually, I think, becomes a bit more mainstream.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, so if you go back to the start of when this really kicks in and we have a couple of world wars, or especially the Second World War to blame for quite a lot of stuff not, or especially the second world war to blame for quite a lot of stuff not taking place, but in the sort of late 40s and 50s, psychologists are thinking how do we increase output and productivity, whether that's from a factory or a service business or even an organization, you know, rebuilding a country post-war, how we've got lots of stuff to do so? Originally it was more about increasing output and applying psychological principles to that.

Speaker 1:

That's sort of the start of coaching if we go post-war. But the argument is coaching has been around forever. It's self-directed learning, somebody asking an open question and not telling the person what to do. So it's not new at at all. It's been around for thousands of years but no one called it coaching. But do you think?

Speaker 2:

that's true. Do you think that you know if we go back? Do you, even if you go back 200 years and think about certain leaders? Do you think they were coaches in the truth? No, no, well, I'm not saying they were coaches in those moments.

Speaker 1:

I'm just saying they were coaches in those moments. I'm just saying a leader could have coached anybody at any time. Some leaders just told people what to do and of course, the wars. Always the argument has been in an army or in a naval context or whatever, you have to have hierarchical structures and tell people what to do and they follow orders but whether you go back to the Socratic method or whoever you want, you know ancient Greeks holding classes and asking their students what they think.

Speaker 1:

Coaching as a conversation to help someone come to the answer themselves without being given advice isn't a new concept.

Speaker 2:

So actually that's an interesting. You mentioned Socratic, socrates, aristotle, that sort of thing. Yeah, so we know that they would wander around yeah challenging perceptions on certain viewpoints, and so that's interesting.

Speaker 2:

So if you take that kind of situation where you're saying this is how the world is, or is it, how else could it be? And you're getting people to start using their minds in an inquiring way as opposed to in a passive way, that isn't that what we're trying to latch onto in the code well, if you then do the diversion between philosophy and psychology.

Speaker 1:

So if philosophy is more like that, why are we here? What are we doing here? What's the purpose? What's god? What's this in a organizational work context? They would argue that's good, but we don't have time to do that now because we've got to get 20 widgets out before four o'clock. So, yeah, we dip more into psychology of how are we feeling? Why is he acting like that? What's she thinking? Is the respect? Do they have a growth mindset, a fixed mindset? Again, new terms, but ancient.

Speaker 1:

So then I think what starts to happen in the 60s and 70s is what you're just getting to there and what you're surmising about leaders is leadership development starts to become popular as a concept of behavioral change. We can improve an organization if we can improve a leader as a concept of behavioral change. We can improve an organization if we can improve a leader. And so if we get the leader to have better habits the idea being that they'll be modeling certain behavior, but they may have no awareness of how they come across and no one likes working for them and people are upset. They're not very motivating.

Speaker 1:

They also go around telling everyone what to do and this isn't working so much now because we're not at war. We're now actually growing, income's growing, we're producing new inventions, cars. Surely there's other ways of running organizations. You can be a leader in a different way. So let's focus on the leaders and let's put some coaching in there, because the leader might change their habits, which are outdated already. You know the old idea that even in my father's time and your father's time they would comment on certain people at work being like a sergeant major.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And so that's dying off. I mean, we say it's dying off, you and I could go into a business today that hasn't evolved at all and is still got.

Speaker 2:

You know somebody who's not democratic in any way running it, and just this is my way, or the highway that of course it still exists well, I'm just thinking that you and I started our working lives at the end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s okay, so we would have had bosses who would have developed through the 70s and 80s. Okay, and I was just thinking about one of my bosses who I used to work for many years ago. I've mentioned him on previous podcasts, so he's a friend of the podcast in some ways. When I think of that gentleman and the idea of approaching him and saying, look, I think you could do with some executive coaching. That would really help you, I think I'm pretty certain what the response would. Be sure, so do you think that it is something that, whilst it's been around for decades, has only recently been seen as a useful tool in developing business people in recent years?

Speaker 1:

I think it's always been seen.

Speaker 1:

Just the amount of people more open to it increases each year is the short answer okay, okay so if we now cut to that period of time, the 80s yeah, we're all into goal setting and performance enhancement someone's doing something. How can we enhance that performance? And of course this is where coaching and other contests like sport massively increases. So whether it's athletics we've just had the Paris Olympics whether it's certain athletes having coaches who are, how does that feel, how is that working? When you came down the back straight, what was it feeling like in your legs? Do you think you could go a bit faster rather than run like this, run like this, run like that?

Speaker 1:

So performance enhancement and the idea of having a coach in your sporting discipline becomes even more popular. And so then you get coaches in a number of fields and it's goal setting and enhancement. We're going away from that kind of desire for output. Can we get more loaves of bread out? Because that isn't going to necessarily help us. And then in the 1990s you have the first development of the ICF, the International Coaching Federation, which set standards and ethics. So there's no standards and ethics set by a governing body till 1995.

Speaker 2:

And who was that.

Speaker 1:

Well, one of the people, one of the founders, is Thomas J Leonard, who created a business called Coach U, which is still running. He is often nicknamed as the father of modern coaching because he helped set standards that then formed part of the icf. Okay, but if you want to know about people, there's him. There's also a very famous book called the inner game of tennis by timothy galway, who put it out there in a book that it isn't your ability to serve volley underarm backhand, it's how, what's going on in your brain.

Speaker 2:

So, and he wrote other books like the inner game of golf, and then he also wrote the inner game of business, meaning that it's how we mentally feel about it, not our skill in in a task I suppose the popularity of sport yeah means that that is a easy segue from look how well these people are doing being coached to how do we utilize this in business, and that's why you see so many sports people doing speeches at absolutely company conferences and that sort of thing. However, I'm not sure that those messages have necessarily translated completely from one discipline to another?

Speaker 1:

Not at all. But also we should make the point that some sports coaches don't coach, they mentor and train and they tell their players exactly what to do. There are other coaches and when I went to Wimbledon this year what I loved watching was the coaches in the box and there were some who were just motivating with body language, going, yes, come on, brilliant. And there were others who were pointing, going hit his backhand, hit his backhand, hit his backhand, lob him, lob him, lob him, lob him, he's crap at the net. They were telling their players what.

Speaker 1:

There was a German guy called Hanfman and his coach I looked him up Portuguese guy. He just smiled, grinned, nothing else. He could easily have said change game and that guy took a set off Yannick Sinner. So who knows? So quite interesting that different coaches. I'm sure there are sports coaches who are booked and paid big money to actually allow the owners of a football team to try to progress, and we could name some now, but it might be slanderous. There are football coaches, if we take football, who are known to come in and tell everybody what to do in order to win a medal, but no one likes working under them.

Speaker 2:

No, I mean, one of the ones that people did like working under was the late great Bobby Robson who famously was very close to all of his players and very supportive and a father figure in some ways. He didn't know any other way to do it. You know, I can't think of anybody in business who I've worked with who I would put into that category, but maybe that's because they haven't been coached.

Speaker 1:

so tell us more about you know the current situation well, if you sort of come up today more and more as you already hinted at yourself earlier neuroscience we learn more about the brain with almost every passing week. We've sectioned the brain out beautifully. Now we know about chemicals being released and not released, and you know and also I think people's understanding of mental health is increased that they know certain people struggle to feel emotions because they don't produce the chemicals. But we're now in an era of positive psychology. That's kind of where we are More and more evidence that if we practice certain behaviours we're more likely to feel happier, likely to feel more engaged, involved, so on and so on. We're also in an era where we're gathering evidence. We're still in a very evidence-based, proof-based era where people want proof before they invest.

Speaker 3:

So it's weird.

Speaker 1:

There's all those wonderful developments in science, but also prove it, prove it. Prove it. And that's also because we've had a whole shift of face-to-face coaching. Or come to my office at the bottom of my garden or we'll do it in my front room of my house, or I rent a little place in a university building. Face-to-face coaching is now totally gone. It exists with some people, but most people, wherever they are in the world, they coach through Zoom, teams and so on. So there's been a massive shift in the pandemic to use online tools, online coaching, which should drive the cost down, because one of the other things we're talking about leaders is most of the people who get coaching earn higher salaries and can afford it.

Speaker 2:

But then they wouldn't necessarily pay for it, would they? Their companies would probably be paying for it.

Speaker 1:

Their companies would. But if they, yes, but I suppose the smaller the company gets, the closer they see it to being their money potentially. But yes, that's true. And I suppose the other very current thing and then I'll give you some numbers which are quite well, play a guessing game with you, you'll enjoy that. The other trends, of course, are diversity. So who else is being neglected, not being given coaching, more equity and inclusion? Can we get more people to be coached?

Speaker 1:

The other thing that is completely a fact of now is this whole personal well-being and work-life balance. No one has to sort of separate those out, because for years we go let's talk about your work-life balance and now let's get back to work. Well, hang on, it's all connected. So I think there's an understanding that work-life balance is part of it. Should we play a game of some numbers? Just on the UK, go for it. How many registered businesses do you think are in the UK? So they're fully registered, they're not illegal, they're up for paying tax if they earn it. How many registered businesses are in the UK? So our little island, if you're listening from abroad, or another country?

Speaker 2:

It's got to be quite high. It's got to be quite high. I think it's something like 200,000. Oh, much higher Think of all the one-man bands and one-woman bands Higher, higher, higher. Okay, 4 million 5.5 million. Wow, there's 5.5 million businesses in the.

Speaker 1:

UK Of a population of 70 million.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Huge amounts of sole traders. Also people who are doing a little side hustle, but they're registered because they might need to pay a bit of tax and also they might be buying goods. So now you've got that in your head and you're listening to us and you know we're a little island. Here we are 5.5 million registered businesses. So how many coaches are known? And this is, this is some form of estimates based on people who've taken courses and various people researching who offers coaching, but there's an estimate of how many coaches there are in the uk who are either part-time or full-time and actually offering coaching services well, if there's 5 million businesses, there's probably something like 100,000 coaches.

Speaker 1:

No way less. 20,000 coaches.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so this is a very good opportunity, exactly right. That's big Wow. Okay, that's really that's amazing.

Speaker 1:

It is, isn't it? So I was playing with that idea that even in a very small geographical context which is what happens, by the way, in counselling People go for counselling in a geographical area. Who's the best counsellor in Bucks for my son, daughter, me, my wife, whatever? But coaching is kind of bypassing that now and it's global. I think one of the opportunities for coaches is to set themselves up geographically.

Speaker 2:

I think everyone works from home these days, so yes, why wouldn't you? But actually it doesn't matter geographically, it's all over, zoom.

Speaker 1:

No, it doesn't. It is but counselling's not. Some counselling is online but a lot of people don't want it online. They want it face to face. I know absolutely, but that's the same number, just so you know, in the research, registered counsellors and we can talk about the difference between that, if you like. Registered counsellors is the same number of registered coaches. So we have a mental health crisis and we have a coaching crisis.

Speaker 2:

We do. I was thinking, as you were talking about an episode we did a little while ago, around all the different things that senior people can do to develop themselves, of which executive coaching was one of them, and you've mentioned some of the things that you might touch upon, like work-life balance, and our example at the beginning of this episode was an individual that somebody's having to work with and how they manage that relationship. What kind of outcomes have you seen from executive coaching?

Speaker 1:

I would say from my work you mean just me team and collaboration improvement number one. So you've got somebody running a team, whatever level of leader they are, and the team is dysfunctional, in their words, often, and they're often the dysfunctional person, ironically. But um, happier teams, I think, is the outcome because the team are inconsistent. They're all playing slightly different games, using different methods, so the team isn't cohesive. So one person's a maverick doing it their way. Another one's got a tried and tested. Six of them are using the system that's been invested all over the shop a great leader. So one person's a maverick doing it their way. Another one's got a tried and tested. Six of them are using the system that's been invested all over the shop.

Speaker 1:

A great leader can actually try to bind the team to all play the same game, so it's a fair field. And then there's consistency, collaboration and so on. That's my number one. I think the other one is for some people is complete clarity of what they want to do. They're doing something that doesn't inspire them and then they actually go. Do you know? I want to do this.

Speaker 1:

I want to leave, or I want to move that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:

So that's much more personal, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Because I've got to a depth. Well, we should make the point that some of my coachees don't open up to me and so after a few sessions I'm saying you know, I'm not really getting far, we're not really working on anything major. What is it? And it's not for everyone. Some people don't like coaching at all, don't want to be asked, don't like to think in this way. It's an intervention that won't work for everybody at all.

Speaker 2:

Well, I suppose, as we said earlier, you are helping the person to come to ideas and decisions about ways that they can change and make changes, and we know that many people struggle with that fundamental point of how do I change? And, having had coaching myself, there are times when you have a session and go wow, that's a great idea, I'm going to immediately apply that, immediately do something about it. It can take a few sessions to get to that point.

Speaker 1:

I think the other thing is, if you think of our coaching that we're doing and our coaches are doing, we're doing it for relatively large organizations, sometimes massive organizations. So some of the people are very happy to be paid a salary to do their work, but they don't really want to get too interested in changing it, as you say, changing it. Their purpose isn't defined by their work. They have other interests outside. But then of course, some people are on a career ladder and go yes, I can make this team better and actually if I do that, I can hop, skip and jump over there and earn another 25 grand and be headhunted.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we get people are are very ambitious or they just ambitious to do a good job I think sometimes in that situation you get people who understand conceptually what needs to happen but have no faith whatsoever in their people's abilities to interpret that into a successful action, and and so they almost see what they do, what their people do and the link between them, which could be success or not, as something distant, as something that's never going to come to fruition, because of their complete lack of faith in the people they work with. It's a tough one.

Speaker 1:

Well, complete lack of faith, either in the people who are supporting them as leaders to help, or complete lack of faith either in the people who are supporting them as leaders to help, or complete lack of faith in all the people doing the job. Which begs the question is why we recruited them and were you involved? What's going on there? So the thing about coaching is it can expose huge weaknesses in people who've been with the peter principle, you know, promoted to a level beyond their level of competence often, but it also can expose where the other links are breaking down, because they'll often share with you. My problem isn't this, it's this or it's this. These two people aren't aligned with me and you can often find out, you know, where the thing's breaking down.

Speaker 3:

Okay, yep, okay, yep you're listening to the reality of business brought to you by reality training. Selling certainty. We're a leading sales training and coaching company based in the uk. For information on how we help our clients improve their businesses, check out our website realitytrainingcom. Check out our website realitytrainingcom.

Speaker 2:

So here's a question. So we've talked a lot about how coaching helps teams, people, individuals, performance strategies. What would you say to an executive who says to you I don't need any executive coaching, I'm very successful and I don't need it and I'm just doing so well. How would you respond to that?

Speaker 1:

I'd say they're probably wrong in that they don't want it, but they do need it. And again, you try getting someone to take a vaccine who doesn't believe in a vaccine. You try telling somebody to believe in God when they don't. These are huge beliefs, so that some people will not be open to any intervention of learning or changing at all at all. No, of course. So when someone says I'm fine, I don't want it, the timing could be wrong. And again, the other thing which is interesting about coaching and counselling and I've had this with some of my clients is they open up, and then they really open up, and then there's a big load of other work that needs doing, because actually the biggest problem isn't anything to do with work, it's to do with their childhood or whatever else. And so some people don't want to scratch the veneer because they might break down completely and they're just managing some level of control.

Speaker 2:

But then doesn't that sort of make it sound quite interesting that when things are going well, you just think I don't need it, okay, and I'll just sit here and ride it out, and when things get tough, you need training or coaching or whatever it will be that will improve that coaching or whatever it will be that will improve that. However, I think it's probably true that very successful people continually need to be pushed, yeah, yeah, and I think quite often we say to people in coaching how are you happy about having some challenge in these sessions?

Speaker 1:

what level are you up to?

Speaker 2:

yeah, and they all go, oh, you know, go for your life. And then you start challenging them and they go. Well, hey, hang, hey, hang on sunshine. Because actually you're forcing their brains to go beyond the comfortable positive situation they're in. There's no harm in that, but they I think possibly many a lot of the time cannot see where the value is in that, even though it growth it's, you know, it's wider yeah, because potentially they've always been measured on something else which might be output.

Speaker 1:

It might be revenue, profit, growth, numbers, volume, the quantifiableness. So this is the other thing about coaching is that more and more tools and tracking is taken. So when people ask about the future of it, more analytics and tracking. So somebody had coaching two years ago, three years ago, where are they now? Let's track back that that coaching's worked. It's not being measured over that period of time at all, it's short term. How have they changed in the three months of coaching? Well, they've changed a bit, but, let's face it, it takes quite a long time to change. The three months of coaching. Well, they've changed a bit, but let's face it, it takes quite a long time to change. So measuring will change longer term growth. You know, I always use the analogy that when you go to school and you're 13 and you say, or you're 11 and you say, I want to do the subjects I like a history, french and English you work on them for years before you're tested, you work on them again for another two years.

Speaker 1:

If you're staying on doing A-levels for another two years and yet, bizarrely, business seems to think can we just do this very quickly and get a result? Probably not. You've probably got to work on it. You bring up the point about longer term. The other thing about, I suppose, human beings is we're in the habit of buying cures rather than preventatives. We always have been. That's how medicine's marketed.

Speaker 1:

And if you look at our state of mental health now, it's only when a crisis and you'll know this from your work in Samaritans, it's only a crisis point that an intervention takes place. So wouldn't it be wonderful if we had far more preventative work taking place? And if you take that in coaching and someone had coaching when things were going well, as you say, they'd be flipping well prepared for when they didn't, which might only be six weeks later. Yeah, but that isn't how people think, because who owns the company or the board? If they're looking at the bottom line of profits money, income fluctuations they don't really want to have to pay for this. We hope everyone's brilliant. Why have we got to pay for it? So we have to do it. If this person's ill in inverted commas.

Speaker 2:

Let's offer them coaching, so should companies offer it to all executives all the time.

Speaker 1:

Well, very interesting. So coaching well, not just executives. Interesting so coaching, well, not just executives. So, if you like, coaching for underrepresented groups, the growing demand for coaching that just supports people advancing their careers or advancing a voice that doesn't get heard, I think that's going to change. At the moment, it seems to be something that's priced at a certain point. We can talk about prices. We can do another little quiz in a minute. I'll ask you what you think about the different prices of what people are charging. You'll enjoy that. Okay, we'll talk money in a minute, because people are wondering what this costs.

Speaker 1:

But at the moment, coaching is for the rich or the well-off, and as is private mental health support. You know there's a number of mental well-being supports that are only quite costly in their thing. So wouldn't it be great if we could, either through AI or tech, we could bring down the cost of coaching and more people could have it? I think there's a. I had an interview with this guy in India who's developed an online coaching system and it asks you questions and you start to answer them and, bizarrely, you just feel better, even though it's a computer. Wow, because it just coaches you. You actually say I'm not feeling too good.

Speaker 1:

Well, what's led to that? You start to speak and as you're speaking and hearing, you start to come up with other things to do. Should we talk money? Yeah, let's hear it. Well, it's going to have you some guessing, actually. So let's start with the lowest, the lowest amount of money that has been found by various sites where people have submitted what they charge. There is a low bar for coaching on an hourly rate. What do you think that is?

Speaker 2:

Is it executive coaching or any coaching?

Speaker 1:

Yes, no, no executive coaching.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's got to be £50 an hour, £100 an hour, £100, £100, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

So £100 an hour is kind of meant to be sort of the entry-level rate for executive coaching. Let's now go to the very highest amount that some people command per hour, and of course it adds up over a period of time.

Speaker 2:

It's got to be £1,000.

Speaker 1:

It is exactly right spot on. Okay, yeah. So the mean rates there's quite a lot between 300 and 600. That's your kind of highest access point and that's again because these are executives who are on higher salaries. It's deemed valuable. But imagine if the tracking and the measuring took place over years and they paid a coach four grand, five grand, for a period of time they did company innovations. The company turned over another million, they took on 16. Then it'd be, oh god, it's like paying a fiver if they tracked it.

Speaker 2:

It comes back to our original point, though. If you're not doing executive coaching with your senior people, what are you doing with them? Because they don't need a training course. So if you did do a training course, you'd be spending at least that. So actually it's spread out over a longer period it's arguably a better investment.

Speaker 1:

That is the interesting point. What are you doing? And some people don't want anything, as we know, don't want to develop. But the attraction of coaching is it's all about you and you'll be asked the questions. Come to your own ideas. But some people don't even want that and also some people won't even test it. And it's the same. I think it's almost the same as if somebody has something very sad in their life. Some people will seek counseling and help and some form of psychotherapy, if you like. Others will just go no, no, and then other people will deal with it in completely the wrong way and do all sorts of bad habits to try to make themselves feel better, which they know won't work.

Speaker 1:

I think coaching is quite similar. Often the people who need it most will have it least. A couple of people I've read about which I would maybe encourage the listeners to look up definitely Timothy Galdway. Also, marshall Goldsmith is one of the most well-known coaches who's written lots of books. He devised the 360-degree feedback concept, which was radical at the time where a senior person will hear from everybody they touch and have pretty strong feedback on them and they, you know, I think some people still struggle to give that because they think they'll work out that it's them. However, they write it, however anonymous it is, you know and some people couldn't take that, could they?

Speaker 1:

no, that exists. He developed that concept, saying you're a leader, you don't just give assessments and feedback to the people, you need it from everybody. So he's quite interesting. Tony Robbins, obviously very famous, arguably a coach. The other person is Vishen Lakhiani, who created Mindvalley, which is online programs, but that's about personal growth and this is where the lines are blurring personal growth, coaching. But I would definitely look up those people and again, some of them have PhDs and doctorates. Some of them have nothing of what they're doing, but it's certainly an interesting field and it's going to grow. We know that AI is going to get in there and track things and share things. I think the very interesting thing will be if there's more affordable platforms for people to access it who could do with it, and I think that will probably only be online people to access it who could do with it, and I think that would probably only be online.

Speaker 2:

There's already some online platforms for counseling and therapy, yeah, which you can get online all the time. That's absolutely available if executive coaching was to grow, because that's the point, isn't it? There's a commercial argument, then?

Speaker 1:

yeah, that makes you mean a commercial argument that an individual grows and so a company does. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the other thing that has been talked about for a few years you need to have assessment and training to be a registered counselor. To be allowed to counsel children or adults, you've got to be qualified. Currently, you can just say I'm a coach with no qualification. So I'm pretty sure over the next few years there will be more standards and ethics and some practices and training schools and certifications, if you like, will be more recognized than others. But that's not there. What else do you think our listeners need to consider? I suppose the reality of coaching and where we are with it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think a good thing is that you and I were both trained as executive coaches with the Academy of Executive Coaches. So if you've been trained to do a particular task, that's probably no bad thing. I'm sure there are executive coaches still who will just turn up and do it. But I think the other point you've made about counselors and what have you I think with executive coaching you have to know where to draw the line, Because of course there are personal elements. But I think when it drifts into the very personal, I think a decent executive coach will say look, that is not my expertise. You need a counselor or you need this type of therapist or whatever it may be.

Speaker 2:

Some won't, but I think most should know that there is a line and if you stick within it you'll probably be fine, but it exists. I suppose the other side of it is that, being trained to do it, you have to adapt as well, because times change between us being trained to do this and where we are now. You're right, it's completely gone from quite a lot of face-to-face to being almost entirely online, and so nobody seems to bat an eyelid about that. I wonder if it might drift back for certain types of clients.

Speaker 1:

Based on those statistics, when I looked at how many people are actually offering coaching and I know that certain people only want face-to-face counseling I think you could set yourself up in a city or a town to focus on that town, because then you'd almost be more connected to the prosperity and growth of the businesses and organisations where you lived. So that almost potentially brings another element of purpose and responsibility to it.

Speaker 2:

But then I think it comes back to the original point of owner-managers and smaller businesses. Are they going to see the value of that intervention? You know, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I suppose they realize they all need an accountant, but do they all realize? Not all realize they need lawyers, not all realize they need other services? So maybe coaching's further down the list? Yeah, and it very hard to sell someone on it. And what we learned early on in business is the double sale is difficult. When we were in a marketing game, we'd sell the concept of marketing, then try and sell them why we should do it. It was exhausting. Whereas if people are sold on the concept of coaching, it's more about seeking out the best coach for me. Yeah, absolutely. Which is back to the same for sport. You know they're sold on. I need a coach for this, but which one?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and there are very successful people who very much rely on their coaches to keep them going and being inspired. I also have noticed on LinkedIn recently some very successful, well-known people being burnt out. And you look at that and you think, well, if you'd had an executive coach, you might not be, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because the other point is you're beholden to the coach, you share things back, you might do work in between the sessions. There's a tracking, there's an element of what you're going to commit to, and so the coach holds you to that standard. It isn't just catch you next time in a cozy chat. You're working towards something, which is why, right at the start, we mentioned about identifying goals and things you really want to achieve or change, and if none of that's expressed, then the coaching intervention can't really get going. Well, what are we actually going to do before next time? Well, I don't. I don't want to change, I haven't got any goals. Okay, great, this is. This has been insightful, you know. Well, we hope that's been um fun, and the reality is that it's here to stay and only to grow and to adapt.

Speaker 2:

There'll be more and more coaching, definitely there will, and thank you for for giving us that trip down the relatively brief history of executive coaching. As you were closing there, I was just thinking about the situation we presented at the beginning of the episode, with me having to deal with a troublesome team member, maureenen. That's pretty typical and I'm just thinking as we go through the series, if we can pop a pin in Maureen's name, jeremy, as we come to different subjects further down the line, we might use her occasionally. She might become a friend of the podcast that becomes this kind of disembodied person that we use as an example, because quite often executive coaching is about an individual and that person's relationship to them, and I wonder whether she'll appear again sometime.

Speaker 1:

I do too, right? Well, thank you all for tuning in. If you like this, let somebody know. Thanks, bobby, and I look forward to your next topic.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, jeremy, see you next time. Bye for now, thank you.