Each meeting will be driven by your needs; in other words, the session is driven by you and therefore you will need to prepared.In order to support you doing so I will send you questions in advance of each session to prompt your thinking.This is where the journal, I mention below, will be helpful to you by enabling you to look back on things that have happened since we last met – not just the most recent events.
During our meeting we will focus on progress made and experimentation with ideas – all aimed at achieving your goals. It is key that you are in a quiet space when we hold our sessions so that you can fully focus on our discussion.
Our coaching sessions
There is no set formula for a coaching programme – you and I will shape it around your needs and budget. The first thing we do after our ‘chemistry’ session is to clearly define what you are aiming to achieve, what are the goals you want to attain, i.e. what it is that brought you to coaching.
Most of our work will be conducted in one-to-one sessions. Often, depending on your goals, it is appropriate for me to collect feedback from those you interact with. And sometimes it is useful to use psychometric assessment tools, in which case I will bring in a qualified assessor to conduct the test and then we will both discuss the results with you.If you have completed assessments in the past, we can also work with those.
How we would work together
Typically sessions will be 60 to 90 minutes in duration. You will find that we cover a great deal of ground in those sessions. I recommend that you allocate time immediately after a session to reflect on what we discussed and decide what actions you will take as a result of our meeting. Your commitments to taking actions are what will deliver the coaching results you are seeking as what we are doing is experimenting with and exploring new ways of working/being.
I ask that you forward your commitment list to me after each meeting so that I can hold you accountable to them during subsequent meetings. I also request that you maintain a journal during our engagement to record what you have tried, what has worked or not and how you are feeling about things. We decide together how specifically we will use the journal.
I will be available to you throughout our engagement and will be available for a call or email if you want urgent support. For example, if something has not gone to plan, if you are preparing for a challenging discussion, or you want to role play something you are going to do. Within reason these calls or emails do not attract any additional cost. I will send articles, podcasts and other materials to you
After and in between coaching sessions
What clients have said about working with me
I have worked with clients across many industries, organisational size, geography, and levels of seniority.If you are considering coaching, I recommend you have a ‘chemistry’ meeting with a few before making your decision.
I asked a firm to ask a selection of clients how they would summarise the experience of working together. Here is what they said were key themes:
“Clients typically partner with Jeannette when they are seeking a coach/mentor that has practical business as well as extensive coaching experience. They find it useful to draw on her broad knowledge spanning all areas of a business.
Jeannette’s clients describe her as direct, honest and able to quickly grasp their situation and explore ways to address issues. She is recognised for her commercial, practical approach to engagements, as well as her personal warmth and ability to quickly build trusting relationships. She uses humour alongside challenge to encourage clients to own their outcomes and commit to action.”
FAQs
This is something only you can decide. What is critical is that you are open to exploring and experimenting with new possibilities, new ways of working. I can help you reach your decision by explaining how coaching works, what you can expect and what people say it is like to work with me.
The frequency of meeting varies from monthly to weekly, with every three weeks being the norm. We will agree on the frequency during our first meeting, and will check in on the efficacy of the frequency from time to time. We want to allow sufficient time between meetings for you to have a chance to experiment with what we have discussed.
This also varies but my overall philosophy is to make clients self-sufficient as quickly as possible. My shortest engagement was three sessions with a client, and I have a few clients that have been with me for years. The average relationship lasts six months.
There are three different ways I gather information when working together. Firstly, insights from you. Secondly, insights from those that you work with or have worked with. And thirdly from psychometric assessments. I often use assessments provided by my clients which are relevant even if from a few years before. If I feel that additional assessments would be useful, we will discuss the idea and if we go forward I will bring in a specialist to conduct the assessment.
I generally charge an hourly rate which varies based upon the seniority of a client, the sector they are in, and if they are paying or their firm is paying for the services. When I am working with a client I am willing to have short, ad hoc calls for which there is no charge, however significant work done outside of our meetings, e.g. revising a cv or reviewing a business plan, will attract additional costs which will be agreed in advance. Each year, roughly 25% of my time devoted to coaching is provided pro bono, typically to students, people working in not for profits.
One of the benefits of technology is being able to work with clients all over the world.