Structure

A typical 9 month coaching engagement would look something like:

1) Start with adult developmental psychometric (Harthill LDP): 1.5 hours for client to complete question stems, 2 hours to debrief with coach. 1 month total timeframe, including time for questionnaire to be externally-rated.

2) Thereafter 8 monthly sessions of 1.5 hours. 

Total commitment: 15.5 hours over 9 months.

Bespoke packages are available to include regular coach availability via phone and email.

Key aspects of the coaching process

Working alliance - key to effective outcomes is the creation of a container of psychological support between coach and client, wherein honesty, risk and challenge are legitimised.

Adult Developmental psychometric - use of Harthill Leadership Development Framework. Designed to surface and explore what drives your decision-making processes both when at ease and under pressure, and how you make meaning of your experience in different situations. Themes which tend to emerge include: how equipped you are to deal with complex problems with adaptive solutions, how attached you are to being right, how much you allow yourself to be identified with your P&L, your tolerance for ambiguity and adherence to good process.

Gestalt and psychodynamic work - geared towards surfacing elements of your unconscious. This will involve some or all of: analysis of strengths, working with trading process, exploring your relationship with outcomes, looking at what triggers you and how you react, incorporating tools for self-regulation, allowing space for emotion and learning to harness it rather than trying to block it out.

Neuroscience - consideration of involuntary physiological processes that occur when under pressure, as well as how to notice and then mitigate them.

Systemic exploration - looking at the forces and constraints inherent in the many systems within which you are embedded, all of which will impact your work, often adding to pressure and stress.

Experimentation - incorporating new awareness into working life, involving iterative loops of feedback, review and adjustment.

Holistic - focus on other aspects of your life in order to optimize for motivation, clarity and happiness.

In more detail

In practice, my work involves partnering with clients to bring into awareness elements of their unconscious and aspects of their shadow. Why do this? Because the more we understand about our unaware responses - physical and emotional - to external forces such as the unpredictability of financial markets, the better we will perform. Through the use of a developmental psychometric, we will explore the lens through which you see the world, how you make meaning of it, the stories you tell yourself about your role in it, as well as your capacity for adaptive problem-solving.

Then, importantly, clients are supported in integrating this new awareness into their work (and lives) through emphasis on process rather than on outcome. The role of emotion and how we handle it is integral to the work. Over time, clients often evolve from seeking to suppress emotion towards a stance of harnessing and embodying it.

What's the difference between unconscious and shadow?

In psychodynamic terms:

'Unconscious' refers to things we are not yet aware of about ourselves - unexplored habits and patterns of behaviour, rigid narratives about ourselves in the world, subconscious drivers such as 'be perfect, be strong'.

'Shadow' refers to elements of ourselves that we actively repress because they threaten our self-concept. An example could be unacknowledged fear of inadequacy manifesting as needing to be seen as disciplined and driven by excellence - which is fine, until it isn't (overwork, extreme self-criticism, burnout).

Working with me will involve the creation of a container of psychological safety through a shared commitment to honesty, vulnerability and challenge. Spending time on this is the single most important contributor to doing work that is truly transformational. As well as Gestalt, psychodynamics and viewing a client's world through a systemic lens, I also weave in ideas from neuroscience, sports psychology, the practice of mastery, and flow into how I coach. This is work that I am passionate about, and that I have trained specifically for.