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Archives for February 2009

The Client Decides…

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As a matter of principle I believe that the client should always decide when our job is done.

We should work with them, free of charge, for as long as it takes for the client to make the progress they desire.

No limit to the number of hours.

No limit to the length of the relationship.

But this requires real skill in portfolio management and managing client independence on behalf od the coach – if their portfolio is not to become ovrloaded with clients who are not real making progress.

The relationship has to be professional, committed, developmental, progressive and challenging.  It should be neither ‘comfortable’ nor ‘easy’.  The coach has to be able to get to the real nub of the problem – quickly.  This is rarely the problem or opportunity that the client initially presents with.  They then have to act as real catalyst for progress.

As long as this is being achieved we should be prepared to support the client for as long as it takes.

We should always remain available to clients.  Our job is not done when we hand the client over to the mainstream.

Our job is done when the client decides that it is.

Enterprise Growth Workshops

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This spring we are introducing a brand new workshop as well as repeating our very well received ‘Introduction to Enterprise Coaching‘ and ‘Marketing Enterprise‘ workshops.  The new workshop ‘Approaches to Enterprise‘ is a full and fast moving day that introduces powerful and proven interventions that will help you help your clients accelerate and maintain their progress.  The workshop covers:

  • The Transtheoretical Model – Prochaska and DiClemente
  • Motivational Interviewing
  • The Solutions Focussed Approach
  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Enterprise
  • GROWing and GRINning – powerful coaching models
  • Learned Optimism – Challenging Self-Talk
  • Achievement Goal Theory
  • Self Directed Learning

With a short introduction to each technique and its psychological grounding, we will put the emphasis on how you can apply what you learn to help your clients make rapid progress.

‘Approaches to Enterprise‘ will be held on March 23rd in Leeds.  You can find out more about this event and reserve your place here.  Book before February 27th and save £50.

In ‘An Introduction to Enterprise Coaching‘ we teach an approach to enterprise support that starts from the premise that we advise and advocate far too much and listen and enquire far too little.  As a result we often weaken our clients ability to solve their own problems and actually make them less enterprising as a result.  The workshop introduces a tried and tested Enterprise Coaching process model and a range of four different styles of coaching.  This gives a solid and comprehensive theoretical underpinning to inform your practice with clients.

Enterprise Coaching Dates

March 6th, London – £349 or £299 if you book before Feb 14th
March 18th, Leeds – £299 or £249 if you book before Feb 19th

‘Marketing Enterprise‘ is a one day workshop designed to help you to improve your effectiveness in attracting enterprise clients.  The workshop covers:

  • What is Social Marketing and Why it Matters to Enterprise Professionals
  • Developing Marketing Collateral that Might Just Work
  • Learning from Current Practice
  • Developing Market Segments that Work
  • Strangers, Prospects and Customers
  • How to Build a Word of Mouth Strategy
  • Using Gatekeepers to Reach the Market

‘Marketing Enterprise‘ will be held on March 27th in London.  The workshop costs £349 per person.  Book before Feb 21st and save £50 – pay just £299 per person.

If you would like to:

  • know more about any of these programmes
  • run them in house or in a different location, or
  • negotiate a discount for multiple bookings

then please do get in touch.

Development as Freedom

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While it is important to distinguish conceptually the notion of poverty as capability inadequacy from that of poverty as lowness of income, the two perspectives cannot but be related, since income is such an important means to capabilities.  And since enhanced capabilities in leading a life would tend, typically, to expand a person’s ability to be more productive and earn a higher income, we would also expect a connection going from capability improvement to greater earning power and not the other way around.

The latter connection can be particularly important for the removal of income poverty.  It is not only the case that, say, better basic education and health care improve the quality of life directly; they also increase a person’s ability to earn an income and be free of income poverty as well.

Development as Freedom (p90) – Amartya Sen

Building the Entrepreneurial Team

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One of the most powerful and effective things we can do for our clients is to help them to think really hard about how they build the full range of skills and passion that their enterprise is going to need if it is to really work well.

It will need a managing director – someone to work on the business rather than in it.  Someone who can make objective decisions for the benefit of the organisation.

It will need someone who is passionate and knowledgeable about the product or service, someone who is passionate about marketing and sales and someone who loves doing the books and preparing financial projections and cases for investment.

  • Can your client really fulfil all these demands?
  • Will they?
  • Or will they default to doing the stuff that they love most?

If they do then at least one vital part of their business will be stunted – and that will be enough to bring them down.

Even if we train the entrepreneur to do everything this problem will develop – because they will always be drawn towards the work that they love – and away from the work that they hate – no matter how important it is to the success of the business.

The biggest favour that we can do them is to help them to build a team that they trust, where other in the team love to do the bits that they hate.

If we don’t do this then it might be easy for us to diagnose the problem (your financial management is weak) and to make a recommendation (why don’t you spend more time on it?) but we will be wasting our breath.  If they don’t love financial management they are not going to do it well.

So why do so few advisers actively encourage entrepreneurs to build a team before they write their business plan?

Do you?

Feedback and Appraisals

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I ran a training session for a group of 15 managers from a favourite client of mine yesterday on How to Make Appraisals Work.  I started the session as I often do with a question:

When you are being appraised what is it that you most want to get from the process?

The first answer I got?

We want feedback!

In other words we work all year and this is the one opportunity to get feedback on how we have done.

This is one of the most common problems in making appraisals work.  Managers store up feedback throughout the year and then try to fire it all off at appraisal time.

Feedback should be given little and often throughout the year to influence behaviour and performance in real time.  Not in the annual feedback fest that is sometimes called appraisal.