Executive Coaching

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Top class performers in Sport have long recognised that whilst maximum performance requires ability, it must be honed and developed through coaching.

Situations in which you might benefit from coaching include:

• A feeling of burden that comes from spending a lot of time on the front line. This may present simply as a lack of freshness, or more seriously, manifest itself as shut-down or burnout.
• Everyone is giving you a kicking. You've read the change management books, and you're pretty sure it is because of what you represent (nothing personal, you're currently a powerful advocate for a big change which threatens vested interests or just the status quo). However, it still hurts and anyway, what if their attack contains a grain of truth: some of your behaviours are 'unaware' and if they were surfaced and addressed in a coaching relationship, could make life a bit less painful for everyone?
• You are simply a demanding, and expert coachee who will raise our game (we love that). There are no problems as such, but an issue you want to work on and you know you do your best strategic work when you award yourself some structured reflection and thinking time with an outsider who is able to be a good foil.
• Perhaps right now, you work in a hostile or highly politicised environment. You know that your ideas had better be fully baked before they are removed from the oven and given to your diners: the various angles, traps and pitfalls carefully thought through.
• Maybe you are having a private crisis you would like to be able to talk through in safety (from time to time, these normal events come to pass, but they can still be tricky to handle from within your organisation because allies are one thing, true confidants another).

Situations in which your own people might benefit from coaching include:

• A recently appointed direct report who has ability, but needs some fast track coaching support to get up to speed.
• Someone you don't want to lose who is struggling with big change.
• You have a direct report who has been the subject of a bullying and harassment complaint, accepts they went too far and needs space and time to reflect on their management style and work on plans for dialling out some of its unsavoury aspects.

What we can do Whether the issues are intellectual, interpersonal or personal:

• Our coaches have the necessary gravitas to work with senior people, balancing high support with high challenge (and the sensitivity to work with senior people who have been through a rough time).
• We bring the models and frameworks that help you work on strategic issues.
• We can coach you in developing a skillful approach to tricky interpersonal work situations.
• We can help you debrief stressful or even distressing issues, leaving you feeling clear-headed and functioning at full capacity once again.
• We help you to think systemically, expanding your understanding of issues until you have a sufficiently rich view of the context to act.

Conclusion
We have a deep knowledge of coaching and have made original contributions to the field. Our consultants have installed whole organisation coaching systems, trained coaches, trained trainers, and provided help with policy development, audio-visual materials, even standards, audit and evaluation of coaching. We live the model ourselves, using coaching to reflect on our own issues.

OPDC is a member of the European Coaching Institute and all OPDC coaches abide by the European Coaching Institute's Standards and Ethics.

Two brief examples of our work

A global software solutions company uses OPDC Coaches to support their managers who are promoted into new roles with significantly increased levels of responsibility. A clear coaching agreement is drawn up at the start and coaching support is generally offered over a period of 6 months, on a monthly basis. ‘This way', the organisation's HR Director feels, ‘our managers are set up for success'.

OPDC Coaches have worked with many executives in a wide range of organisations and in all sectors over the past 20 years. The focus of the coaching agreement is different for each relationship, from working on ‘life-work balance' issues to ‘cracking tricky business problems'. Our coaching contracts range from an agreement with an individual manager to contracts with a whole management population in an organisation.