One to one coaching has been growing in popularity over the last ten years and has become a part of many organisations development plans and training programmes. In fact a study by the CIPD found that over 86% of organisations now use coaching in some form for their employees. So, why is this? The simple answer is that it gets results! More importantly it gets results quicker than if the coaching wasn’t taking place.
Our one to one coaching produces improvements to both the individual and the organisation's performance at several levels. Just as leading sports people individually, or in teams, have gained enormously from feedback via their coaches and sports psychologists, coaching provides the individual with access to the same performance enhancing techniques.
Benefits of one to one coaching for the individual
A personally tailored development program
The flexibility of our coaching approach is tailored to an individual’s learning style and their most pressing need for performance improvement, encouraging new ideas to be brought to their workplace challenges when they need them.
Help to solve real work situations.
Helps the individual focus and deal with real business situations. Individuals develop their own solutions to their work challenges through coaching, thus improving their own performance and attitude, gaining satisfaction and increased respect from others.
Allows for personal reflection and encourages self awareness
Our in depth coaching process encourages the individual to reflect and develop their own self awareness of their attitude and behaviour, and how this impacts themselves and others.
Improvement in relationships
Our coaching encourages the individual to use their increased self awareness in their relationships with others to improve teamwork and organisational effectiveness.
Acknowledgement of a person’s importance to the company
Selection for our one to one coaching program is a visible signal of an individual’s worth and an acknowledgement of their future potential and advancement.
Flexibility in delivery
Our one to one coaching can adjust to suit the demands of a busy individual to fit in with their work commitments.
Benefits of one to one coaching for the organisation
A personalised and adaptable way of developing high performance in different people
Our one to one coaching helps address a wide variety of different development needs for each individual within the organisation to achieve their own performance.
Greater opportunity to breaking down barriers to change
The duration of our coaching assignments allows new attitudes, behaviours and methods to become more embedded and accepted in the workplace. It is of sufficient time to allow the reactions to change commitment to run full cycle to a positive conclusion.
Close relevance to the learning style of the individual.
As our coaching is a one to one relationship, it can be tailored to the different ways individuals learn, thus enabling them to learn in their own way and apply that learning to relationships and teams they interact with to achieve their and therefore their organisational goals.
Helps the individual interact more effectively Through our coaching process the individual has the opportunity to think about how they can apply their behaviour and attitude to improve their interaction in relationships with others in the organisation, thereby improving overall results.
Why use Jackson Solutions as your coaches?
We are professionally qualified and experienced coaches who have many years experience in top level businesses and have achieved successes as individuals. We keep up to date with developments in psychology, neurophysiology, coaching practices and business issues, so we are best placed to give the appropriate advice and support that is needed. We apply our expertise in organisational psychology and NLP and can draw on a range of psychometric development instruments to help in providing feedback on specific issues to make our coaching a significant development experience.
The Jackson Solutions Coaching process
Our coaching is delivered on a one to one confidential basis and offers the individual a suite of tools to allow them to focus their attention on both their organisational and personal goals. A key part of the process is to allow the individual the time to reflect on what exactly they need to do to achieve their goals and how they are going to do it. It also helps the individual to identify what is getting in the way of achieving what they want; this could be personal, professional or organisational. We help the individual to elicit the specific areas that need focus to achieve their optimum performance.
There will be an introductory meeting whereby the individual will meet one of our coaches and ensure that the personality fit is right. A dynamic and strong coaching relationship is critical to the success of the process.
During the first coaching session the specific goal/s and measurable outcomes* will be identified. It is important for both the individual and the coach to understand what success looks like so that they both know when it has been achieved.
* There is an option to have a meeting between the individual, the coach, the line manager and / or HR manager prior to the first session to agree overall outcomes for the coaching. A ‘three or four cornered contract’ can be agreed so that each party is clear about the reason for the coaching. This contract is often useful as the results from the coaching will be seen by, and have a direct impact on, the line manager. Even though the outcomes would be shared the actual content of the coaching conversations would remain confidential.
Subsequent one to one coaching sessions will be delivered over a period of time according to the individual need. We will use our expertise to implement specific tools, psychometric or other assessment instruments, and follow questioning techniques at the appropriate time to help the individual achieve their goals.
Continual email support is offered throughout the whole process to ensure the individual feels supported and maintains momentum to achieve their goals.
Our coaching relationships are a minimum of four sessions per individual and the recommendation is at least six sessions to allow for the personal change to become embedded within the individuals’ mindset, attitude and behaviour.
Our approach to leadership and management centres on developing the skills needed to create an engaged workforce. Employee engagement is about getting the active enthusiastic involvement and participation of every employee in the organisation in moving the business toward the vision created by the leadership team. In other words it is about leading and managing your workforce in such a way that each individual achieves high degrees of satisfaction in their work and the organisation's productivity benefits from high workforce effectiveness. In summary, organisations that create high organisational commitment from their employees have higher engagement, lower turnover, retain their highly talented employees, suffer less consequences due to stress, and out-perform their rivals.
The central tennet to our approach is coaching. As well as one-to-one coaching sessions for specific development purposes, coaching is a style of management that is used continuously as a means of getting the job done and for developing performance on a day to day basis. Organisations that adopt this approach find that they create engaged employees. Employees feel valued, feel good about themselves, have a clearly identified sense of purpose and come to work with the intent of achieving it.
Our leadership and management programmes therefore centre on developing leadership competencies and behaviours that enable leaders and managers to adopt a coaching style towards employees. Whether you're starting from scratch or already have a developing coaching culture, we can design a development programme that will take you further on your journey.
Our 'Leadership Coaching' programme is an in-house, tailored, 2 day plus 1 day workshop, filled with practical advice and opportunities to practice coaching and receive top quality feedback. The programme offers a balance of underlying theory with practical models for implementation and ample opportunity to practice and receive feedback.
Variations on this programme can be designed specifically according to your circumstances and to fit in with your overall employee development objectives.
Please contact us to ask your questions and discuss your specific requirements
Here's a summary of the principles underpinning our approach to leadership and management development:
If you're considering investing in leadership development, then it might be worth
considering understanding the viewpoint of the people delivering the programme. Click here to read a summary of our perspective.
Firstly, by culture we are referring to the unstated and accepted way of thinking and behaving in an organisation. If your aim is to create a coaching culture, then it is to embed the principles of coaching as the 'default' way of thinking and behaving. This can be said to have been achieved when the whole organisation adopts a common coaching language which is a huge benefit both internally within the organisation, such as; increased satisfaction, self confidence, self esteem, ownership, responsibility and consistent performance and results. There are also external benefits with customers and other stakeholders, such as; an enthusiatic workforce, enhanced reputation and excellent customer service. This is shown by the companies in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For who regularly outperform their competitors. You can find some comments from clients we have worked with on our testimonials page.
So how do you get there. Well the answer to this very much depends on where you're starting from and it is a process that requires careful consideration of the psychological factors involved. In principle the situation can be considered like this: an organisation wants to benefit from engaged employees by moving towards a coaching style of leadership and management and this style can be developed through our workshops. The other half of the equation is that the organisation's employees have to be willing and able and ready to respond to a change in management style. In other words employees need to change too. Whatever is needed to achieve this change depends on the degree of development of the current workforce. Some will respond readily because the existing culture is appropriate and able to accept the change in management style, others will not be so readily accepting and require further development to build the skills needed to accept the change. Almost certainly in any workforce you will be faced with employee responses ranging somewhere between enthusiastic to resistant.
A coaching culture will exist when both the leadership and management style are congruent with employee expectations. Designing the programme to achieve this requires a knowledge of where the organisation is culturally and what needs to change to make a coaching culture possible. We have a range of tools and assessment instruments validated for cultural change work and by using these we can help you map out the journey and design the interventions required specifically to get you to your destination.
Coaching is an extremely effective psychological process for resolving differences of opinion, for example in business decision making processes, and often enables agreement to be reached in situations which otherwise may lay unresolved for long periods of time and which may be causing operational difficulties throughout the organisation.
Our experience and expertise in coaching can be applied to facilitating group decision making processes in one of two ways: we can either attend meetings directly and facilitate the process first hand, providing an impartial and neutral perspective in bringing disputes to agreement, or we can provide training and one-to-one coaching to key members of your organisation in group facilitation processes so that you can develop the expertise in-house.
All of our facilitation services are tailored to specific circumstances and we would be happy to discuss your requirements with you. Please contact us to arrange a meeting.
We run open courses at a venue just outside Chester and run in-house courses as required. We also deliver NLP training targeted at specific applications, please contact us for further information. For information about NLP and what it can do for you, please see What is NLP below.
Phil and Alex Jackson are accredited by INLPTA, (www.inlpta.co.uk) the International NLP Trainers Association to deliver accredited training in NLP. INLPTA is a self governing body made up of NLP trainers from around the world whose purpose is to ensure that NLP is trained with consistent high standards of content knowledge, training delivery, and ethics.
INLPTA was founded over 20 years ago by Wyatt Woodsmall with whom we trained personally. Wyatt has been involved with NLP since its early development and has trained NLP in over 25 countries on 5 continents. His experience includes conducting over thirty 20-day NLP Trainer Trainings all around the world and he co-trained with Richard Bandler on the first ever NLP Trainer Trainings. The INLPTA syllabus is considered to be the minimum required for reaching the standard of Practitioner and has now also largely been adopted as the UK standard by the ANLP.
There are shorter practitioner training courses available from other providers that cover less material and provide less practice time for around the same cost.
To enable easier entry to the NLP Practitioner qualification, INLPTA have set standards for an accredited 4 day NLP Diploma to give a structured introduction to the subject. The 4 days form part of the 16 day NLP Practitioner training and are part of the NLP Practitioner syllabus.
To join one of our programmes, please contact us. To give an idea of price, please find below our current open course delegate rates which include all materials, refreshments and lunch. A small number of reduced price places are available on each programme to charitable organisations:
INLPTA NLP Diploma £350
No entry qualification requirement
4 days arranged in 2 x 2 day blocks approx 4 weeks apart
INLPTA NLP Practitioner
No entry qualification requirement
With no prior learning:
16 days arranged in 8 x 2 day blocks £1,600
With NLP Diploma or to upgrade from other practitioner short courses:
12 days arranged in 6 x 2 day blocks £1,250
INLPTA NLP Master Practitioner
Entry qualification: INLPTA NLP Practitioner (or equivalent)
18 days arranged in 9 x 2 day blocks £1,800
Class sizes will aim at 8 people and prices are plus VAT and include all course materials, venue and lunch.
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a powerful technology which has valuable application in self development, leadership and management development, communication, therapy, teaching, sport, and many other areas. It is a technology based on applying psychological theory and understanding to the process of thinking. It is based on the premise that the thoughts we have determine our day to day actions and behaviour which in turn lead to results. Collectively these results form the lifestyle we lead, and so by gaining greater control over our own thoughts we can increase the influence we have over the results we get and the kind of life we lead. Like the classic quote from Henry Ford... "whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're right"!
Many people, and even some psychologists, believe that people are essentially fixed about how they see the world and how they respond to situations and that people can not change. Yet most of us know of people who have made significant changes in their lives through quite natural processes, people change habits, change behaviours, change politics, change their views about religion and business and all manner of things. Certain aspects of personality are more fixed than others, but even these can be changed if the motive is there - I know of someone who was born right-handed and lost their arm in an accident, within a few months they had learned to do things with their left hand they had never thought possible including writing fluently - so people may not be able to change completely but they are capable of changing their approach to situations much more than is generally considered possible.
NLP makes use of the connection that naturally exists between information received through our sense and the development of the thought patterns that lead to many of our behaviours.
Linguistic – the communication/information received through our senses
Neuro – the way our brain responds to information received to codify, process and make meaning of it
Programming – the patterns of behaviour we develop as a result of our brains response to information received
For example, we might have an embarrassing experience as a child or young adult when standing up in front of an audience to speak for the first time that we find really unpleasant. We see the response on people’s faces, we may even hear them laughing and imagine it's at us. This might be reinforced by hearing people afterwards give ‘constructive criticism’ or overhear people talking and again imagine the worst. The end result is the combination of information received leads to a neural connection, an association, between the thought of speaking in public and the feeling of being embarrassed, ashamed and unloved. If the event is emotionally strong enough, one experience can be enough for us to react this way for the rest of our lives unless addressed. But even if no single event occurred, often repeated instances of a less emotional nature can lead to the same result. We don't really notice it's happening, but one day we just notice that we don't like speaking in public.
What happens as a result is a self generated auto-response thought pattern (a program to respond this way), what is sometimes referred to as a limiting belief (a belief that limits your possibilities) that you’re no good at public speaking and you’ll get a lousy reception and feel embarrassed and ashamed in front of an audience which will be humiliating. This thought creates a sickening feeling, a state of anxiety, which is very real and drives you to avoid speaking situations like the plague. So much so that eventually even the suggestion that you might have to stand up in front of an audience gives you the same feeling.
Now, NLP takes the view that if it is possible for other human beings to be good public speakers, there is no reason why you cannot be too, the only question is how do you do it, and then you need the chance to practice a few times to convince yourself you've mastered it. The problem arises because the limiting belief is treated as a factual truth, when it is only a belief. The belief: 'I am no good at public speaking' is very limiting, whereas the belief: 'I'm no good a public speaking yet, but once I've learnt how to do it and had the chance to pratice a few times I'll be as good as the next person' is much more helpful. Both are equally true, the first is very limiting, the second is much more empowering and your actions and behaviour will be very different according to which belief you choose to hold.
Much of what we are talking about happens in the mind – we imagine speaking in public and feel the emotional and physiological response similar to if we where actually doing it. NLP calls this imaginative domain the ‘subjective experience’ and it has a structure made up of images, sounds, feelings and other representations that are unique to each human being. NLP is a methodology that enables you to change the structure of your subjective experience to change your thoughts and auto-response patterns and so help you change your behaviour to that more likely to achieve your desired outcome.
The advantage of working this way is that you only need to change the structure once – provided you have made the right change, and you experience the evidence you need to convince you that the change has had the desired effect, then you will find your behaviours will have changed without the need for constant conscious remembering.
NLP can be used very effectively for overcoming undesirable behaviours – nervousness in front of an audience, compulsive shopping, over-eating, smoking, nail biting, phobia and fears, broken sleep patterns and so on.
NLP is extremely successful at creating new positive resources whenever you need them. New thoughts can be built within the subjective experience that allow us to get into the right state of mind for different situations. You can create resourceful states – relaxation, energy, confidence, passion, listening, even getting in the right state ready for learning, and get to understand yourself at at level that will give you clarity over the the choices life offers you.
Early Development of NLP
Up to the 1970’s therapists of various types had tried theories of applied psychology to deal with many of the issues faced by people every day. Success was variable with therapy programmes frequently running for several months or years.
The two founders of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder took a different approach. They studied several particularly successful therapists of the time to determine what it was that they did differently that made their work so much more effective. They found something different to the applied psychological approach, they found that these highly successful therapists worked not only from theory, but also with the very nature of the subjective experience as perceived by the patient. They did not generalise the patients experience to fit current psychological models. They were simply, in their words, working with the client’s experience and doing what worked.
Milton Erickson the famous hypnotherapist had developed his techniques intuitively and instinctively over many years and had evolved some incredible communication strategies that today form the basis of modern hypnotherapy. Yet it wasn’t until he was studied by Bandler and Grinder, he is recorded as saying, that he realised just exactly how he did what he did so well.
So Bandler and Grinder were then joined by Judith deLozier and Robert Dilts amongst others who investigated further the approach that ‘simply just worked’ in something that became known as NLP and was first published in NLP Volume :1 The study of the structure of subjective experience. (Dilts, Grinder, Bandler, DeLozier, 1980 ) from which the filed of study has continued to grow internationally.
Current Developments and Training
The field of NLP continues to develop and continues to expand and much research has gone into explaining the psychological principles behind it.
There are a few key points to note regarding the current status and training of NLP…
NLP is taught as a series of techniques, but NLP is not the techniques. A little like learning to drive a car through a series of instructions and processes that follow in order, but everyday driving requires much greater flexibility to handle constantly varying traffic conditions.
NLP is the study of the structure of subjective experience that creates an attitude and a methodology that leaves behind it a trail of techniques. The techniques are used to teach NLP but NLP is not the techniques, NLP is the attitude and the methodology.
This is very important to note, because many NLP training courses simply teach the techniques and are therefore often delivered quickly with relatively little study time – in as little as 5 to 7 days to become an NLP Practitioner. In our opinion, (and the opinion of many other ANLP and INLPTA trainers (see http://www.anlp.org/index.asp?PageID=331) these courses serve a limited purpose and you therefore need to make sure you understand what you’re getting when you go on one, and what you're expecting to get out of it.
The NLP profession is not currently controlled although there are several moves to make it so and bodies such as INLPTA (www.inlpta.co.uk) exist primarily to maintain standards.
NLP is experientially learned and it is not a subject where theoretical understanding is a substitute. It is therefore very difficult to learn NLP through distance learning or reading books. These resources are a useful support mechanism. Understanding and working with the subjective experience can only be learned effectively through experience and practice. Sometimes words do not exist to describe the experience, but then since the experience is what matters words are not always necessary.
In our opinion, short courses do not equip you with the ability to use NLP with anyone other than yourself. They are a useful introduction to NLP and personal growth and if you want to apply NLP in any situation where it might have an impact on other people this should be followed by a more rigorous 16 day practitioner training giving a total 120 hours minimum class time .
NLP is not a quick fix nor a simple case of learning the models and applying them, there is a skill to becoming an NLP practitioner that takes time to master. To learn it to any degree of respectable competence takes, in our opinion, at least the 250 hours of practitioner and master practitioner classroom training spread over 1-2 years supported with background reading and practical experience. Ideally, we also recommend people attend the INLPTA Trainer Training delivered by Wyatt Woodsmall - one of the finest trainer trainings in the world - to become truly competent. Even then, as we have found, the learning still continues.
Of course every great learning journey begins with but a single step, so why not get in touch and find out what single steps are available. contact us
