Online Performance Coaching
- for Professionals and Employees
In today's workplace, where the pressure is on to continuously improve your performance, you are expected to personal responsibility for your own learning and development. Senior people can often find the resources to buy-in support, but for managers and team leaders working at lower levels in an organisation they have to find more cost effective solutions. For those working from home or away from the office, they can feel remote and face additional work-life pressures which can affect their performance.
There are many e-learning courses that address core skills that support, sequential, logical and analytical skills, but few if any, like The Change Zone offer the softer or "right brain" skills that promote inventiveness, curiosity, empathy, self-awareness, purpose, happiness and personal fulfillment.. But these are the very leadership skills that will determine who flourishes and who struggles in a socially networked, uncertain and globally competitive marketplace. We help senior leaders and managers establish indicators related to the effectiveness and dynamics of strategic change. We recognise the importance of linking role context and relationships to the broader organisational context, not just to performance indicators established as part of Performance Development Reviews. You are then encouraged to think, not only about business outcomes but also the personal development needs of thos around you.
Is it for you ?
This is a form of coaching will suit a sole trader in a service industry or in a profession. You may be a freelance architect, planner, building engineer, journalist, photographer, editor, salesperson, public relations consultant, recruitment agent, accountant, bookkeeper, financial advisor, artist, web designer, or providing domestic cleaning and gardening services. You will therefore:
- need time to think, explore ideas and create solutions at a time and place of their own choosing
- want time and space to reflect on key questions and not to feel they are being put "on the spot"
- like the space to engage in exercises, scenarios and reading materials that focus on what is really important
- need to explore opportunities for change and the consequences of possible actions in more detail
- value execises that can challenge assumptions and discover alternative perspectives
- want to spread the coaching costs and support to buy what they want for as little as £30
- like to refer back to previous conversations for future reference
E-Coaching is a completely different experience to face-to-face coaching. It is particularly valuable for people undertaking management or leadership development courses and who need to develop their self-awareness and creativity skills. These skills are crittically important, but always available in many accredited leadership and management development programmes. They are skills need for the first 100 days in a new job, or to get up to speed to secure a promotion or sudeenly having to take on management responsibilities. First we'll discuss what you want to achieve by when, help you draw up a learning plan, review your progress, tap into your strengths and remove unnecessary distractions.
Exactly what we do depends on your goals, but we will generally set reflective exercises for you to complete in your own time, and then we'll discuss your answers. As obstacles arise, we'll remove them. We will work to focus your energy and remove the distratctions that are holding you back. We have a large array of tools and techniques to suit your learning style on the website as I keep you on track towards achieving your goals.
Our experience of professional working environments and knowledge of coaching can help you resolve deeper concerns and consider new opportunities for change. We don't have all the answers but we know what questions you need to ask yourself and what actions you could take that will make a real difference to the way you think about change. It may be a habit that isn't working for you or a situation that you need to make sense of.We have a range of exercises to help you face facts, explore the possibilities and embrace uncertainty with curiosity and confidence.
Most clients complete their e-coaching assignments and implement their solutions over 6 months.
How it works
The Change Zone offers an email exchange coaching service to help you develop skills and strategies to improve your performance by working closely with their coach - often anonymously. As a result the service can be accessed anywhere and at a time to suit you. The pace and depth of your involvement is controlled by you, allowing you scope for quick responses or to have time for careful thought, reflection and more a considered response. As a complimentary member of The Change Zone you have access to a wealth of tips, tools, techniques, exercises and reading material that is specifically designed to support you as you set out to tackle your performance issue.
NOTE: Coaching differs from mentoring in that it focus is on developing and supporting the client's thinking. Coaching places the emphasis on removing the distractions and overconing the limiting beliefs that are preventing progress. Mentoring offers expert guidance and advice where necessary to do the 'right' things in the 'right' way to get a desired result.
What are the advantages ?
You may be asked to take on larger management and leadership responsibilities with little or no support from your manager, but you are concerned about your reputation and the shortage of time for learning important interpersonal and self-awareness skills. Finding the time for face-to-face coaching an independent coach can be a expensive. But having someone with considerable experience available to help you, at a time that suits you, can have major advantages.
The Change Zone offers expert coaching (not advice) from professionals who are experienced managers and team leaders at a senior level. They have a track record of success in large and small organisations.We know how to help you think about what you want and how to live and work more consciously and creatively. Remembering to be more specific in your assessment, feedback and solution finding can be cucial in resolving your dilemmas and create well-formed outcomes. Seeking permission and reasons for a conversation creates greater openness, succinctness and purpose. This causes us to speak with generosity and clarity of intent. Adpting a solution focus avoids the need to analyse problems or dig into past mistakes, so the thinking is positive and creative..
Pat was a Headteacher for 15 years and Steve an Organisation Development and Change Coach for over 20 years. Steve has worked with a wide range of professionals and helped them deal with the stresses, moods, emotions and uncertainties that a fast moving environment with complex challenges inevitably brings.
What makes The Change Zone different is that we offer 'assistance at a distance', at a time and place to suit you. We have found that email messaging can be a positive and effective performance coaching technique for people who want confidentiality and anonymity. This seems to be valued more and more in today's competitive workplace.
- Email makes it easier to reveal issues that might be embarrassing in the absence of immediate feedback
- Email is ideal because you don't have to take time off work and you receive the same service wherever you are
- Email in a world of laptops and mobile devices makes it possible to respond at work, at homework and even when travelling
- Email provides an opportunity for deeper and more considered reflection, enabling you to think before you respond
- Email allows key messages to be retained for reference and helpful information or exercises to be attached
- Email enables the relationship to remain professional, confidential and even anonymous if required
- Email communications takes more thought and care, because feelings and thoughts have to be put in context
"I am perfectly comfortable sharing intimate details about my emotions and needs during our coaching conversations and email exchanges. I tend to shy away from expressing my true feelings to anyone I know in real life" A Change Zone client
Getting Started
Send us a message using the REQUEST FORM with a short description of your goal, problem or dilemma. Use a pseudonym if you want the service to be anonymous, but you can always be assured of complete confidentiality. See our PRIVACY POLICY. Note that all our coaches and mentors have Professional Indemnity Insurance.
Information Pack
You will receive a personal reply and a short information pack that outlines the email mentoring/coaching process, explains our code of practice so you can hold us to account and contains a coaching/mentoring agreement so you know what is expected of you and us to make the relationship work. Payment arrangements are then agreed and fees must be paid a month in advance.
Registration
When we receive your first payment we will issue you a username and password that you can use to access all the support information. This material only appears to registered clients or fee paying members. To access it, all you need to do is use the login on the homepage.
First Assessment Session
In this session of email interactions we check out with you how you:
- what will be offered and when
- how you would like the process to work
- clarify what success will look/feel like
- how you can make the best use of the resources available
- estimate how many sessions might be needed.
This session is free, after which you will be able to decide if you want to go ahead. It is usually takes between 4 and 10 email sessions to achieve your goal. The fee for each session is £60 which assumes one session a month, but the pace is decided by you. [A session is one main email exchange with up to 10 small exchanges in between for guidance and explanation].
Homework
You will be expected to undertaks specific exercises designed to help you become more self aware and reflective. This enables you to observe your way of being and how you way of seeing things is stopping you from stepping up and becoming the person you want to be. The learning will come from your own experience as you realise you have all the resources you need to change and make it stick. There will be personal assessments, short exercises and quizzes, films to watch, book reviews, storytelling, and little tasks and techniques for you to try. You will be encouraged to reflect on the language you use, the mood state you adopt and the way you hold and use your body. All three influence the way you think, feel and act.
We are not offering a "quick fix" here. You will need to put in time and effort, but you will not need to leave your home or your office or take time off work to do it, and we are always here to support you every step of the way. We will respond to your emails within 24 hours and can use alternative ISP's should there be an access problem with our server.
Evaluating Progress
As you progress through the mentoring/coaching process you will be asked to rate your progress on a scale of 1-10 and comment on what is or is not working for you. We can then agree adjustments to ensure that you get the most from your investment. At the end of the agreed sessions a final evaluation provides you with valuable information on what approaches to change work best for you and helps us learn how we can improve in future.
When an employer is the sponsor all communications are anonymous and the anonymous evaluations can be used to help the sponsoring assess the impact of the mentoring on the performance of their business. The impact can be felt in reduced absences, increased team effectiveness, improvements in personl performance and higher levels of motivation.
Guarantees
The work we do is a co-active partnership between a coach and a client. Our Code of Practice makes it clear that any actions taken by you are your responsibility. We only make suggestions, we are not telling you what to do. We are simply asking you to engage in the things that you need to do to achieve the changes you want. Our well established approach is based on cognitive behaviour theory and practice involving reflective learning, ontological change and NLP techniques.
Very occasionally the goals you set are not achieved in the timescale set. As long as you engage fully in the homework suggested by your mentor, the lack of progress most often falls down to situations at work or at home. The arrangement can be terminated by either party by giving a month's notice in writing. We expect you to honour your agreement with us as we will honour ours. After all, it could jeopardise your success and cause problems for us in planning our availability for other clients.
If your questions have not been answered please do not hesitate to give us a ring on: 01386-861841 or send an email
