Coach Class

When I was a senior director at Asda (mid management position with a US job title) I was fortunate enough to realise I was entitled to executive coaching. 

I seized the opportunity and after selecting three potential coaches from a long list of ten, I picked Jonathan Bowman-Perks.

After an initial chemistry call with JBP and my then boss Chris McDonough I then embarked on a journey that helped change my life. Six two hour face to face sessions in his coaching apartment in London. Me being me, and Asda being Asda, I managed to stretch them out over a whole year, rather than the standard six months. 

But what I learned about myself and the power of a great question and the use of metaphor literally empowered me to take charge of my own destiny.

Some of the conversations we had together are as vivid now - nearly seven years on, as they were back then. Precise observations, challenging my limiting assumptions, the use of story and biology. Forcing me to confront how I viewed myself, and the impact of the words I chose to describe myself.

Jonathan taught me so much, I will always feel a sense of gratitude to him and of course to Asda for paying for it! I left Asda a few months after completing my coaching journey. The right move for me, and ultimately the company - so it wasn't wasted money. I left on good terms having helped restructure an entire part of the business, which meant my role was obsolete.  

Anyway, have a listen to this 20 minute chat and see for yourself what a fascinating person Jonathan is - and how his application of Nancy Klein's Time to Think principles are so powerful. 

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Dr Anne Gregory has been Professor of Corporate Communication at the University of Huddersfield since September 2014. She joined the University from Leeds Beckett University where she was Director of the Centre for Public Relations Studies. While at Leeds Beckett, she also completed a three year term as Pro Vice Chancellor.

Anne was one of the tutors and course leaders at Leeds Beckett (formerly Leeds Met) when I studied there in the mid 1990s.

She was also the one who had to validate my sandwich year work placement in London at Building Design Partnership. I think I still hold the record for the shortest official placement, having been made redundant on the second day of my actual placement. 

Stuck in a rented house in Leytonstone (pre smart phone / home internet) I was firing off letters trying to get a job. Eventually opting for temporary work via Office Angels on Oxford Street in the centre of London. 

I was rewarded for my effort in the finance department of BDP - but being curious and a little cheeky asked if I could meet the PR team while I was there. Pleading poverty and sharing my misfortune of losing my placement, managed to blag a maternity cover role managing the 35mm slide desk. 

The rest is history.

Anne has always held the view that communication is strategic, it is what organisations are all about. Translating the vision of the CEO, communicating with the communities in which they operate. Comms is right at the heart of that - making vital connections. Orgs move forward due to certain conversations. It means comms pros are in every bit of an organisation - they are the go to people. Embedded into the fabric of the organisation. 

We reflect on what it was that set some students apart from others. A hunger for wanting to know what was going on, what worked and what didn't. An insatiable curiosity and the ability to think through things and make a contribution. Someone who understands issues and has a mindset that says: how am I going to address those issues? 

Anne's advice on life is do what makes your heart sing, because that is where your passion will be. Have the bravery to do what makes your heart sing. 

Thanks to Anne I found that communications is what makes my heart sing. 

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Gal Shivtiel is MD at Great Ideas Group, he's an entrepreneur, ex-retailer, and a wanabe vet. 

He started his career while on a year out from school working for The Yorkshire Post in ad sales, but with a focus on retail. He got his first company car, and a taste for the working life and decided to stick at it.

Which eventually led him on to Asda, where he started in marketing but moved into trading - heading up the dairy division.

Gal was one of the first senior leaders I knew at Asda to give me praise via my boss's boss. Which had a big impact on me at the time as I hadn't appreciated at that point that he even knew who I was.

His networking and connecting skills are renowned - so much so that many years later I spotted him (having returned from four years in Australia at Coles, and three years in China for Walmart) 'walking the floors' of Asda House. Gliding around the building, checking in with various people, putting credit in the bank with them, and seeing how they were.

Gal was also one of the first people I observed saying yes first, and figuring it out after. He was prepared to take risks. He treated his move to Australia like a holiday - imagining being there for two months, to see if he liked it. What's the worst that can happen?

He has an infectious aura around him, but he is also extremely sharp and astute. Blending his charm with an absolute focus on the customer, be that a shopper in store, or a consulting client. 

Best advice he's ever had? There's a couple of things that spring to mind, education is the best investment you can ever make. And you've always got to be confident you're going to do the best you can but sometimes you'll make mistakes.

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Emma Fox is CEO at Berry Bros. & Rudd, Britain's oldest wine and spirit merchant, having traded from the same shop since 1698.

Today the company has offices in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, a Wine School and an exclusive fine wine and dining venue in London's St James's, and they hold two Royal Warrants for H.M. The Queen and H.R.H. The Prince of Wales.

However Emma's career started out in brewing. Having worked in a Victoria Wine off-licence to pay her way through university, she snapped up the opportunity on her first graduate role to manage a shop within Bass called Augustus Barnett.

A baby buying role then emerged in wine, which led to her completing the wine and spirits training, and at the tender age of 23 saw her flying solo around the world to exotic places like Argentina, Chile and New Zealand.

She reflects on the fact that working hard through uni, combined with an opportunity that presented itself like running an off-licence could be considered 'lucky'. But one goes hand in hand with the other. She knew what questions to ask at the interview for the role, as she had worked in an off-licence.

Her career has taken many paths since, including working for Asda, Walmart Canada, Halfords and TOFs (Original Factory Shop), but it has now gone full circle - albeit the quality of the wine at Berry Bros is a bit better than it was back then.

The thing that draws all of the organisations together is the team of people she's worked with, and how they get things done and have fun. A real sense of getting things done willingly and well through others (something she learned from Asda legend Archie Norman), and taking the role seriously but not yourself. Enabling people to have fun at work is really important to Emma.

She has never really had a masterplan for her career, but she was always been driven and determined without knowing what the end result would be. She always wanted to do new roles and experience new things, which enabled her to spread her wings within large organisations like Bass and Asda.

She was prepared to take the risk on ex-pat assignments without worrying too much about what the next step was. She preferred to enjoy the now.

The best advice she's had was from David Cheesewright who ran Walmart International at the time. She'd been passed over for a couple of promotions, and was a little frustrated.

He asked for five minutes and said he had a real opportunity for her - he wanted her to be his logistics director.  Her first response was she didn't think she could do it as she'd never done logistics.

But what he wanted was her transferrable leadership skills, not logistics experience - it was about the how not the what. It was a real penny drop moment for Emma and something she uses all the time when speaking to women leaders in particular. Say yes and figure it out after.

By pushing herself out of her comfort zone it made her a better general manager - adding to her marketing and buying skills - making her a more rounded leader, which has held her in good stead ever since.

It was a risk, not knowing how she would cope - but a great lesson in life.

The gift she would give her younger self would be to be a bit more patient and be a bit calmer. Back then she was know as the Tasmanian Devil.

She recalls that great phrase: "To go fast go alone, to go further go together."

Bring people with you, and manage the urge to do everything now.

Wise words. 

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Dom Smales is an entrepreneur and social media pioneer having founded a talent management agency called Gleam Futures that spotted and developed YouTubers to become brands in their own right.

He started his career in media sales, selling ad space in magazines and on radio - learning the value of media. He also got a taste for talent management. 

Following a health issue he chose to start his own business, a social media consultancy, which led him to discover two sisters (aka Pixiwoo) who were make-up artists, but also had started creating 'how to' video tutorials on YouTube. 

He says he was lucky to meet them at just the right time, as he was also working with Chanel and was able to to connect the two. 

He realised the entertainment platform they'd created was only going to grow, and there was an opportunity to connect other content creators to brands who wanted to collaborate, and ultimately benefit from what  they had. 

Part of his manifesto when he set up on his own in 2010 was to work with people he liked. His vision for the community of YouTubers he built was to enable them to have a sustainable career, not just a hobby.

Dom had a real eye for talent. They needed to have a work ethic, the creativity and charisma. His role was to connect the dots for them, so they could use the tools they already had.  

The ingredients of his success? He knows and likes people. He spotted talented people who he knew would be brilliant at their jobs - be they creators, or talent managers. 

So what's next? He's fascinated by the next wave of subscriber networks for content creators on platforms like Twitch, Patreon and Only Fans. 

Dom is extremely humble, generous and gracious. An inspirational leader, who not only spotted an opportunity, but built an entire community of content creators that has paved the way for social media influencers ever since.

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Sorrel Roberts is a professionally and academically accredited coach, passionate about harnessing the benefits of coaching to assist organisations and individuals in realising their potential.

Her work focuses on three key areas:

• Coaching for professional development
• Coaching skills development
• Supporting working parents

In this podcast we both reflect on a Barefoot training course we attended together: Working on Nature from the Inside Out.

Working with nature in the natural environment is becoming an increasingly popular coaching approach. Coaches and supervisors are stepping out in the natural environment and engaging with nature as they walk and talk with coaching clients. But there are also ways to bring nature into every coaching conversation, be that inside a room, or down the end of a Zoom.

Hosted by Jackee Holder (see biog below), the four hour workshop was a brilliant introduction to using nature in your coaching practice or supervision.

We learned how bringing nature in can bring the unconscious into the conscious, and got the opportunity to try free form reflective writing, we conjured up memories of places that we go to, that when you are there help you feel energised, and we used words from nature to enquire as to how we were each arriving - what's the weather like in your head? - and we considered what the various seasons mean to us.

For me personally it was wonderful to get an injection of Barefoot-ness having completed the PG Cert course in July. Although I'm still in touch with my cohort of peers, it was great getting back into the classroom to be inspired by a new topic, and to meet more of the Barefoot family of coaches.

Sorrel was struck by the space the Jackee creates in her workshops, and feels it is both a balm and a boost, but also the nature from the inside out and the reconnection with leaving the house each day for a short walk.

Sometimes in the coaching industry we sell or live on the idea that change has to be hard - but for Sorrel the metaphor of the changing seasons helped remind us that change is inevitable, it is natural and that things will change and emerge into something else.

Sorrel felt quite poetic about Autumn, the leaves are falling, some things are decaying, but also nutrients are being added to the ground.

We finished the day with a 121 coaching session where we used an image of a tree, via a Zoom call, as the prompt for a discussion. Even in 15 minutes we both found it really illuminating how resourceful the metaphor became for our coachees. Noticing more and more about the tree, its roots, its surroundings, the shape of the trunk and that opening up different and interesting thinking.

I'd highly recommend this course to fellow coaches looking for some inspiration, and of course the opportunity to do some personal development while meeting more of the Barefoot family.

10/10.

About Jackee Holder

Jackee is the author of four non-fiction titles, 49 Ways To Write Yourself Well, The Journal Journey Guidebook, BeYour Own Best Life Coach, Soul Purpose and co-author of two unique illustrated writing maps, Writing With Fabulous Trees: A Writing Map For Parks, Gardens and Other Green Spaces (2016) and Rewilding The Page: The Urban Forest Writing Map.

Jackee works as a leadership coach and facilitator and was ordained as an Interfaith minister in 2001. Jackee writes the monthly Write To Flourish column for Psychologies Magazine and is a board member of the International Association Of Journal Writers (IAJW) USA. Her first and second loves are daily city walks and journaling.

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Amanda's career began on the Marks & Spencer's graduate scheme, where she worked for 10 years before moving to Asda. Starting at Asda as a Store Manager, Amanda progressed over the next 15 years to Vice President - People.

She joined Dunelm in March 2015 and is currently the Stores and People Director on the executive board.

She didn't plan to work in HR or personnel as it used to be called. When she was on the M&S grad scheme she had the choice of personnel or being a store manager and couldn't think of anything worse than dealing with people's problems.

When she was at Asda, she started to mature and realise that good stores were run by good people, and bad stores had people issues. This led her to appreciate the importance of how you lead and manage people in a business, which led her to Asda House and beginning her career in that field.

Asda in its heyday was brilliant at making totemic examples of the importance of values - all colleagues one team for instance.

She's carried some of that learning with her to Dunelm - where it is real and not just about slogans on a poster on the wall.

During the pandemic Amanda says they've actually got a lot closer to their colleagues, keeping connected to them via regular video messages, using the intranet to keep the conversation open, even leading to a new company value - stronger together.

They'd do 'all store coach calls' (Dunelm's name for store managers) - with the aim to listen, learn and understand. Not just listening to act - as you can often do the wrong thing.

Feeling at Home Wherever you Work was born from it.

An approach to hybrid working that is very much led by the colleagues and the teams. They've avoided gimmicks, not been prescriptive and kept it personal to the individual.

They've created different spaces in the offices, shared spaces and hot desks, plus social activities such as quizzes, crazy golf, BBQs.

They've created a wellbeing calendar, bring your dog to work day (to introduce each other to all the lockdown puppies and dogs), plus tours of the building.

Lane4 from EY, have helped them figure out how you lead a hybrid team. 75% of people say they're more productive at home, but a similar amount feel more connected in the office. 

The other aspect they've considered is how you join a new business remotely. They're growing and employing a lot of new people, so Amanda is conscious of doing that better. How you make a new starter feel part of the company from day 1. 

As a leader you can't just focus on what you care about or what your own needs are. You have to respond to what your team want, and do the right thing by your people.

Amanda thinks the future of work in the next 6-12 months will be very interesting - it's going to be dictated by the market - there have never been as many vacancies - so you need to ensure you are truly meaningful for people. Are you a good company, that cares, cares about the environment, cares about its people. 

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Over the past 20 years Kevin has worked with top leaders in many different organisations, as a trusted adviser and coach.

He helped them develop their personal leadership styles, build on their strengths and become even more self-aware. By doing so they understand their own abilities, their motivations, and their limitations. He considers achieving deep self awareness as 'money in the bank' for the individual. Particularly for anyone in a large organisation, who then moves to a different working environment such as setting up on your own.

In his career Kevin specialised in coaching and consulting at CEO/director level, and top team development, consulting with them on organisational change.

We were introduced via a mutual contact Justin Skinner who I worked alongside 20+ years ago at Direct Line. He was keen we meet when he heard I was moving into coaching as Kevin had 'been there, done that'.

As he draws towards the end of this career, he is keen to impart his knowledge and inspire others to follow their dreams.

His start point for anyone venturing into a new field of work and wants to be a success is to focus on three things: 1. network, 2. network, and 3. you know where this is heading don't you?

One of the early books on networking was called: 'Build your well before you are thirsty'.

Another great insight he shared with me was from a good friend of his, Tony Walmsley who once ran a petrochemical plant before going into consulting. He used to say: "Don't just do something, stand there!"

As a very busy operational manager, he often observed people rushing around like headless chickens. When they didn't need to.

Kevin's background is in psychology where he learned about models of learning and how the brain works and assimilates information and the importance of reflection. In the reality of the business world he believes it takes real courage to apply that without being viewed as not actually doing anything!

The essence of organisational development is to enable the individual to become more self-sufficient, but this can also mean effectively doing yourself out of a job. Recognising that we all need to eat - you need to be aware of the impact your reflective approach has in an environment where there is an 'addiction to action'.

Keven had always been pretty dismissive of online and telephone coaching pre-pandemic, but when you have no choice, he climbed on that learning curve and was pleasantly surprised what you can do.

It left him feeling al lot more optimistic about hybrid learning and working. 

It was a real joy speaking to a seasoned coach who is handing on what he knows to those at the start of their journey.

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Having just completed the Barefoot Coach Training Course for Business and Personal Coaching, it was a real privilege to speak to the founder of the organisation herself - Kim Morgan.

Kim is CEO of Barefoot Coaching, one of the most successful and fastest growing coaching and coach training businesses in the UK. 

She was one of the UK’s first executive business and personal coaches and pioneered the development of university-approved coach education in the UK. Her lifetime contribution to the industry was recognised when she received Coaching at Work’s award of “Coach of the Year”.

Kim has over 25 years’ experience in the training and development of coaches. She holds a Masters in Coaching and Coaching Development and is a Visiting Research Fellow of the University of Chester and lifetime Fellow of the National Council of Psychotherapists. Kim is also a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist.

In this podcast I get the opportunity to say thank you to Kim, and to reflect on the amazing experience I had on the course, the things I learned about myself, the new skills I've acquired, the new friends and colleagues I've met, and the journey I've been on since April. 

I learned that I'm good enough, and if I can remain still, really amazing things can happen. Listening with every fibre of my body to the client that is with me. 

The Barefoot organisation Kim has created now proudly boasts a community of more than 4500 Barefoot graduates. 

I start by asking Kim what brings her to Barefoot today (one of my recently learned favourite questions). Listen to the podcast to hear her answer.

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Katherine has been Customer Director at Hobbycraft for eight and a half years and is accountable for marketing and brand, the Hobbycraft Club and its ecommerce business. 

She studied at Glasgow Uni, where she intended to study English, but came out with an economics and management degree - which is a story of her career. 

He first role was at Mars, Pedigree Masterfoods, where she did a rotation of two years in lots of different functions. It was really challenging, but you are assigned a mentor, and given a safety net to try things and understand the benefit of taking risks. 

Katherine joined Hobbycraft from B&Q, where she was Executive Marketing Director for two years, and, prior to that, spent nine years at ASDA in a variety of roles including Marketing Director and Ecommerce Director. 

She loves working for entrepreneurial businesses that have a strong brand and connection with their customers. 

Culture is really important to her. When she joined Mars you felt like you were all colleagues one team. Anyone who joins you can learn from, peer to peer or from your manager or you to them. 

Usually you were doubling something, or halving the cost - which set you up for a growth plan, the culture gave you confidence to try, with a support structure around you.

Katherine has been reflecting recently on the benefits that remote working brought to the workplace, but thinks you can't replace face-to-face coaching, being in the room together, or walking the store together. 

Helping people join the organisation remotely has been a challenge. Sat on Zoom on your own, you may be conscious of constantly asking questions. Whereas in the office or in store you can observe but also have an ongoing chat.

The bit she loves about her job is filling in the insight gaps that you can glean from data with conversations with colleagues and customers in stores. 

I asked what piece of advice she would give her younger self - she says she wouldn't change much. Always be ambitious, ask for help along the way, try to be the best you can be rather than focus on a particular role, always put yourself forward, just go for it. 

She believes you need to set out your point of difference and go for it. 

She picks out people that were a positive influence on her in her career, Rick Bendel, David Cheesewright, Angela Spindler and Rebecca Rees - who treated Katherine and her partner Stephen to go out for dinner on the company when she managed to hit her target - it didn't cost the company much but it left a lasting impact on her, and is something she likes to do now for others.

She also tells the story about Tony Lowe who Katherine was presenting to in a big meeting in her early career, she could tell he was waiting to say something. When she asked what it was, he told her he was waiting for her to get off the fence. From that moment on she never held back from making a decision.

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