Coaching for a strong state of mind

THE SUNDAY BUSINESS POST
m10
APRIL 8 2012
CAREERS & RECRUITMENT
EDITED BY ELAINE O’REGAN email: [email protected]
Coaching for a strong state of mind
A coaching programme run
at the National College of
Ireland aims to unlock its
participants’ full potential,
writes Gareth Naughton
O
vercome the
inner voic e
that undermines you as
you work,
and you will
unlock your full potential.That
is the philosophy behind a new
coaching programme being
run at the National College of
Ireland, in conjunction with
the London-based School of
Coaching.
The coaching programme,
which is being launched later
this year, aims to give participants the tools to help coachees
to overcome the insecurities
holding them back, and unconsciously focus on the changes
that will improve their performance.
‘‘The job of the coach is to
raise awareness in the coachee,
and for both the coach and the
coachee to be in a state of relaxed concentration. The way
to get there is to apply listening
skills, asking questions that
raise awareness and largely following the interests of the coache e,’’ s aid A lan Pal mer,
manag ing dire ctor of the
School of Coaching.
The prog ram me has its
fou ndations i n T he Inner
Game philosophy and methodology developed by tennis
coach Tim Gallwey in the
1970s. Gallwey was working as
a successful tennis coach, and
noticed that the successful
players were the ones who were
able to gain real focus.
‘‘He was doing very well but
noticing that, when he was
coaching somebody, he was
really dealing with two selves ^
‘Self One’ and ‘Self Two’. Self
One is the running commentary; full of judgment; the
player of the game who is in
his own way,’’ said Palmer.
‘‘It is a bit like your little
critic, the voice inside your
head. Self Two is the uninhibited, full of potential, natural
player. It just notices what is
going on, is self-aware and in
relaxed concentration. Self
Two is what a lot of top athletes
would describe as being ‘in the
zone’ or in flow.’’
Gallwey’s philosophy, which
he has continued to develop
over the past 40 years, is that
by learning to use non-judgmental but accurate observa-
tions of events and behaviours,
the person’s body adjusts automatically, and ends up producing the best possible
performance. So, coaches are
not there to tell players what to
do but, rather, to help them to
really zone in on what will improve their performance and
naturally get the best out of
themselves.
‘‘A lot of people relate to the
world of coaching in the realm
of sports in terms of ‘The
coach knows, the players don’t,
the coach gives instructions’.
That the coach has the overall
strategy and gives out the orders,’’ said Palmer.
‘‘The difference is that one
of our foundation stones is the
coach being a true believer in
the potential of the players or
the coachee. What emerges in
the conversation is that, without even knowing it, both the
coach and coachee get into this
state of relaxed concentration,
rather than it being something
that is imposed.’’
While initially the philosophy was applied in a sporting
context, it quickly became apparent that it could also be appl i e d s u c c e s sfu l ly i n t h e
workplace with beneficial results for productivity.
‘‘In the world of work,
coaching is sometimes very
well received by senior managers and career people, who
can see the benefit of having a
thought partner with whom
they can work through their
challenges and come up with
some breakthrough ideas,’’
said Palmer.
The key is successfully to
overcome that inner voice ^ or
interference ^ that wears away
at your confidence, and ensures that you never really
achieve your full potential.
‘‘We use this equation,which
is performance equals potential minus interference. There
is your potential and then there
is what is in the way which is
taking away from that to give
you what your performance is.
We almost never perform to
our potential because there is
always some kind of interference. Self One is full of interference, whereas Self Two has
almost none,’’ he said.
Perhaps the most surprising
thing, though, is that you don’t
Alan Palmer, managing director of the School of Coaching: ‘One of our foundation stones is the coach being a true believer in the potential of the coachee’ TONY O’SHEA
tackle the interference. Indeed,
tackling the interference only
makes it worse.
‘‘If potential minus interference equals performance, you
might think that what you need
to do is reduce interference ^
so let’s get to work on that. It
would be logical to say that because, if you reduce it, you get
more performance,’’ said Palmer.
‘‘However, the weird thing is
that if you work on the interference, you get more of it. What
you resist persists, so if you
working on it only means that
you keep it in play. What you
need to do is take an approach
that raises awareness in the
player and follows the interests
of the player. That is the thing
that makes the interference
melt away, and more and more
of t he p ote ntial sh i ne s
through.’’
This is very much about focus. If the coach and the coachee can focus in on what is
genuinely important to them,
they naturally go into ‘the
zone’ and perform at their
peak. ‘‘It is not a conscious ef-
fort; it is a state of flow, of natural being,’’ he said.
On the face of it, this sounds
very much like the kind of
mentoring that happens across
Irish workplaces every day, but
there is a fundamental difference. While the mentor is imparting knowledge, the coach
is encouraging the coachee to
unlock their own potential.
‘‘We would say that in a
mentoring relationship, the
mentor has the knowledge,
skills and experience and is
looking to transfer that to the
mentee. In the coaching field,
the coach does not necessarily
have to be more skilful, knowledgeable or experienced,’’ said
Palmer.
‘‘I have never been a chief
executive, but I have coached
chief executives. I need to work
to understand their challenges
and their business, but I don’t
have to walk in the door knowing their business.
‘‘I have also coached people
in tennis but I am not, particularly, a tennis player. In a mentoring situation, it is more akin
to master and apprentice. Our
working
petitive you can be in the
market place.
WEEK
Who do you most admire in
Irish business?
I have to admit I do admire
what Bob Etchingham, chief
executive of Applegreen, and
his team have done over the
last couple of years.They entered a very competitive market and seem to be expanding
on a daily basis.They have a
good brand and their customer service is excellent.
Shane Deasy is managing
director of Bitbuzz, a wi-fi
network operator providing
high-speed wireless internet
access to roaming partners,
location owners and direct
users. Bitbuzz has more than
350 wi-fi hotspots and 8,500
hotel bedrooms in its network
in Ireland and Britain. It has 15
staff and offices in Dublin,
Belfast and London.
What are the main
responsibilities of your job?
Thanks to having a very
strong operational team, I am
able to spend time working on
the future strategy for Bitbuzz.This varies from looking at potential new markets
to developing new strategic
relationships with other internet and telecom companies.
What are your primary
professional motivators?
In the early days of Bitbuzz, it was definitely fear of
failure ^ knowing that there
was no guarantee that you
would get paid is a great motivator to succeed.
What are your expectations
for Irish business in the
months ahead?
Shane Deasy, managing director of Bitbuzz
How would you describe your
work style?
I am ambitious, but I try
not to take work too seriously.
I am not a confrontational
person so I try and find common ground with people so
we can all get what we want.
In Bitbuzz, I try and encourage a professional, but fun
workplace.
What rates as your best
business decision to date?
It must be launching Bitbuzz back in 2003.The first
few years were tough and it
could have gone either way,
but we are now an established
company and it’s great to see
the company growing year
after year.
What is the most valuable
professional lesson you have
learned?
I think you have to be sure
your numbers are correct.
Keep a close eye on your costs
and make sure you protect
your profit margin.The more
you know about how much
the product or service you sell
actually costs, the more com-
We sell our service into hotels, cafe bars and coffee
shops all over the country.
Everyone knows that this industry has gone through a
hard time over the last couple
of years, but we are beginning
to see a resurgence. Hotel occupancy seems to be improving and new restaurants and
cafe bars seem to opening
every day. Hopefully, this
trend will continue for 2012.
What is your ultimate
professional goal?
My aim for 2012 is to continue to develop Bitbuzz’s
presence throughout Ireland
and Britain through the provision of a technically superior, accessible and good value
wi-fi service.
The key is
successfully
to overcome
that inner
voice ^ or
interference
^ that wears
away at
your
confidence
models and approach are not
bas e d on i n str u c tions or
knowledge but following the
interests of the coachee,’’ he
said.
The School of Coaching,
which operates across the
world with offices in Qatar,
movers &
SHAKERS
Australia, South Africa, Australia, Asia and the US, was
founded by Myles Downey,
author of Effective Coaching.
The school is now working
with the National College of
Ireland to introduce a coaching
programme for professionals
interested in either becoming
professional coaches or adding
to their skillset.This is the first
time that the School of Coaching’s programme will be offered in Ireland.
‘‘NCI president Dr Philip
Matthews was very keen to
bring a professional coaching
course to NCI. As a believer in
the ‘Inner Game’ and while researching and looking for providers of this kind of
professional qualification, he
came across the School of
Coaching and reached out to
us around about 2010.The conversation went from there, and
we entered into a partnership
to run the course late last year.
It was really through his desire
to bring a coaching qualification to the National College,’’
he said.
Participants in the NCI pro-
gramme undertake a series of
workshops ^ with an emphasis
on practical learning ^ before
completing a coaching portfolio for submission to the Unive r s ity of Strat h clyd e i n
Scotland, which will then
award a Certificate in Professional Coaching.
‘‘It is a very practical course
and we design in a lot of practice time. The participants on
the course get a short piece on
theory and then plenty of time
to put it into practice. The
learning is largely experiential.
Because there is an emotional
or experiential aspect to it, it
has a lasting effect,’’ he said.
It is envisag ed that the
course will run twice a year,
with a maximum of 16 participants involved and an ideal
class size of just 12.
‘‘We keep the cohort small
in order to make sure that there
is a lot of personalised attention with the tutors, and it maxi m i s e s t h e p a r t i c i p a nt’s
practice time in the workshops.
It is not your typical classroom,
where you put 50 or 60 people
in a lecture theatre and have
somebody present and then
take questions and then everybody leaves. It is a three-day
workshop where we do some
theory work, but mostly practice work to bed in that experiential learning,’’ he said.
Participants must also provide free professional coaching
during the course. Often, this
will involve colleagues from
the workplace ^ and the aim is
that on completion they will be
able to effectively coach anyone in the organisation from
executive level down.
‘‘Participants themselves
have an increased capacity to
lead effectively within their organisations.They develop skills
to draw out the best performance in other people.You see
an increased performance in
both teams and individuals,’’
said Palmer.
‘‘For the folks who are looking to add the coaching style to
their leadership,they embed effective workplace coaching
and management in a personal
leadership style. It strengthens
your effectiveness as a leader
in the organisation.’’
Stephen Bell
Grainne Kelliher
Wendy Hederman
Gillian Clarke
Lou Conlon
Vicki Hannan
counsel and chief regulatory
officer with eTel Group for four
years.
the role of CRM manager. Lou
Conlon will now take over as
Arnotts’ marketing manager.
Conlon joins from Dundrum Town
Centre, where she was marketing
executive for four years. Prior to
that, she produced Dublin Institute of Technology’s Fashion
Show for six years.
& Vicki Hannan has been
appointed business development manager with Media Brokers. Before this she was a sales
development specialist with LinkedIn for ten months. Prior to
that she was business development manager with Boards.ie for
three years.
& Ulster Bank has appointed
Stephen Bell to the role of chief
risk officer. Before this, he was
chief risk officer at AIB on
secondment from PwC for 12
months. Before that he was a
director of risk in business
support and recoveries for Barclays in Madrid for two years.
& Grainne Kelliher has been
appointed vice-president for food
services at Aramark Ireland. Prior
to this she was director of
Aramark Property for two years.
Before that she was chief
executive of Park Rite for 11
years.
& Mason Hayes & Curran
Solicitors has appointed a new
partner to its commercial department. Wendy Hederman joins
from Diageo Ireland, where she
was legal counsel for seven
years. Before that, she was group
& Gillian Clarke is Arnotts’ new
head of marketing. Clarke has
been the retailer’s marketing
manager for the past 12 months,
having joined four years before in