Executive coaching

Coaching helps people to improve their own performance and achieve what is important to them.

I’m an executive coach with training from the well regarded Henley Business School (University of Reading) graduate coaching programme.

My approach to coaching is very much based on my personal values and beliefs. One of those key beliefs is around partnering, which is tied to my NZ birth and upbringing and a key concept within the Maori culture. That concept is ‘kotahitanga’, which has a number of meanings, but is about togetherness, creating oneness, and operating in true partnership. I always try to create an atmosphere with my coaching clients where this is truly felt.

In coaching sessions, great emphasis is placed on creating a safe space for my coaching clients (often referred to as coachees), using accessible language and a relaxed demeanour, ensuring that the conversation is paced in a way that suits the coachee.

Irrespective of whether my coachee is a young professional or a seasoned senior leader, a corporate player or the owner-operator of a new business, I work with the person in front of me to help develop solutions that are right for them; to think about and find answers that are meaningful within their own personal contexts.

THE EXPERIENCE OF OTHERS ......

Working with Grant has been genuinely transformative. Through thoughtful and challenging conversations, he helped me uncover the root causes of long-standing habits that affected how I communicated professionally; particularly my tendency to over-explain and second-guess myself. He equipped me with practical tools and strategies to communicate more clearly, prepare more effectively and understand the external and internal pressures that shaped my behaviours from lingering imposter syndrome (most importantly, feelings are not facts!). What I valued the most was how he guided me to reflect deeply and take ownership of my role with greater confidence and clarity. I’ve come away from our sessions more self-assured and better equipped to grow into my role with purpose and confidence.

Graeme Alsford, Head of IT and Data

Age UK Oxfordshire

Grant provides me with a safe space for which to explore ideas and options. I don’t find self-reflection and thinking about what I want and need very easy so these sessions mean that I have time to really start to work out what’s going on and what I want to do with regards to my business.

I find my sessions with Grant very relaxed and enjoyable and I feel very comfortable being open and honest with him.

New business owner

I received coaching from Grant over an 8 month period during a very challenging period in my professional life that had left me struggling with how best to move myself and my career forward. Grant was really supportive and empathetic to the difficulties I was experiencing during our sessions. He also provided incredibly useful input to keep me directed towards active steps I could take to support myself, both in dealing with my acute challenges and moving myself forward towards my wider goals. Overall, I found the whole experience really insightful and it has left me in a clearer and more focused place to work towards my goals going forward.

Data scientist - UK public sector

Helping you to unlock your inner potential

Whether you are at the start of your career or a seasoned senior leader, I want to help you get to where you want to go. My wide-ranging business and personal background along with my experience across countries and cultures, creates a solid basis for coaching support.

So what is coaching?

The International Coaching Federation has provided one clear definition of coaching:

“Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential.”

So how does coaching differ from mentoring?

Coaching and mentoring are often considered to sit on a continuum.

Both are concerned with personal and professional development, but the amount of input by the coach/mentor increases as one moves along this continuum towards pure mentoring.

Coaching allows a client (often referred to as a coachee), to identify whatever it is that they want to achieve and then have a facilitated conversation that helps them work towards their own particular goal or objective. As the coach I’m there to help develop their reflective thinking skills and to provide appropriate prompts, to help them achieve what they want.

Are there models and tools to help the coaching?

Like most professional coaches, I use well-structured processes and well tested models and tools, to help the coachee work towards the specific goal or objective that they have selected for themselves. If I’m doing a great job, then these tools and processes will be largely invisible to the coachee – you shouldn’t feel like you are being processed!

What might I achieve through being coached?

What you are looking to achieve is up to you as the coachee to define. My role as the coach is to help you get there. But coachees often find that through coaching they have developed greater self-awareness and that their emotional intelligence (which can support empathy, collaboration, communication and leadership), is enhanced. Being clear about defining their own goals and having a clear plan on how to achieve those goals, also comes from participating in coaching.

How long does the coaching take?

A typical bundle of sessions for a coaching client to achieve what they want, would be 4 to 6 sessions and with each session being around 60 minutes long. The sessions would typically be about 2-3 weeks apart, which gives good time for the coachee to reflect and think and sometimes do a bit of homework (notes and ideas that might help them move towards their goal). But the number of sessions, session length and the scheduling, will be agreed to suit the individual client and what it is that they want to achieve.

Where does the coaching take place?

In our connected post-pandemic world, most of the coaching I do these days is online, using Teams, Zoom, or GoogleMeet style platforms. So, not that different really to how an awful lot of business is now conducted. Online sessions generally work well for coachees, removing the complications of travel and meeting location co-ordination. That said, if meeting face to face is going to work better for you, then we can discuss how we might do this.

So how do we get going? How do we start?

I always begin a new coaching engagement with a free 30 min intro session. This is a chance for both of us to get to know each other a little, make sure that the fit is right, and ask initial key questions. If everything feels correct and appropriate, then we can do the diary-management piece and plan a convenient time for the first full coaching session.

I enjoyed the coaching conversation with Grant – I felt relaxed and free to say whatever without being judged. Grant asked some great thought provoking and effective questions.

Higher education senior leader

Grant was excellent at guiding me to follow my own thoughts and drawing my own conclusions instead of placing any views on to me.

Grant helped me to look at my career in more perspective and encouraged me to break up the future into smaller time chunked goals as opposed to worrying about it as a whole. It is always valuable to have an objective view, and a good coach can help you to take a step back and look at things as a bigger picture.

Young professional

Executive coaching

Coaching helps people to improve their own performance and achieve what is important to them.

Helping you to unlock your inner potential

what others have said ......

Contact Us

Drop us a note.

Executive coaching

Coaching helps people to improve their own performance and achieve what is important to them.

Helping you to unlock your inner potential

what others have said ......

Contact Us

Drop us a note.

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