Thank you for considering me to be your coach.
From my background, my coaching clients tend to fall into the following four categories:
- Corporate Executives
- Change, Transformation, Innovation Professionals
- Fellow Agile Coaches, Design Thinkers
- Startup Entrepreneurs
Coaching Corporate Executives
As a former front-line banking executive, I speak the corporate language and understand the organizational code. And then I am a behavioral coach, process coach, and Organization Development professional. Because I see organizations from the five view points of people, process, structure, product and customers, I consider one of my important functions is to transfer knowledge, skills and abilities (“KSA”) around these five points to my executive clients.
The Changing Nature of Leadership in the Age of Networked Teams
In today’s social and digital world, work is becoming increasingly information intensive and networked. The role of the leader is quickly transforming from traditional command and control decision maker and instructive giver, to collaboration facilitator for teams of knowledge workers.
The pressure on leaders to change, transform and innovate is high, and invariably I listen to a lot of “shoulding” and “musting” in my coaching conversations. I often see that channeling that should and must energy to our innate desire for personal mastery and serving of others (self actualization and self transcendence) is a powerful, transforming experience for my coachees.
Learn more about my executive coaching from this follow-on article here: https://agile-od.com/executive-coaching
Coaching Change, Transformation, Innovation Professionals
It’s a tough and lonely job to be a change agent, transformation lead and innovation expert. You are asked for a lot from the organization, particularly as results delivery and reporting culture is so strong. Yet, you are left to your own devices. After all, change, transformation and innovation is new stuff, so the expectation is that it’s up to you to learn and develop new ways of doing things.
Learning Complexity Handling
Thankfully, you’re not alone in this learning journey. Complexity was not invented recently. From ancient times, humanity has been conquering complexity with trial-and-error. And in modern times, management science has advanced trial-and-error into really smart thinking and approaches such as Lean, Design Thinking and Agile.
There are many ways to learn complexity handling. Coaching is one such effective way.
As a serial startup entrepreneur, and a consultant, trainer and facilitator for organizational change, Agile transformation and digital innovation projects with multinational corporations, I handle complexity, everyday.
If you are a change, transformation, innovation professional, and are looking for a coach to help you breakthrough with the many complex challenges around your work, I may be the right coach for you.
Read more about my coaching with change, transformation, innovation professionals: https://agile-od.com/innovation-managers-toolkit
Coaching Agile Coaches & Design Thinkers
I was an Agile coach and Design Thinking practitioner first, before I also became a behavioral coach. The recurring challenge, and reflection on where most of my success came from in Agile Scrum and Design Thinking interventions, led me to take a serious look at the people elements of our practice. In my case, I decided to deepen that by becoming a Positive Psychology coach (CPPC – Certified Positive Psychology Coach, International Association of Positive Psychology Coaches, ICF ACC – International Coach Federation Associate Certified Coach).
It has been one of my best career decisions. By having clarity on the differences and overlaps of process coaching (in frameworks such as Agile Scrum, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, Lean TQM etc.) and behavioral coaching (in the form of executive coaching, business coaching, life coaching, group & team coaching etc.), I believe both sides of my coaching practice have become more effective.
Coaches Need Coaches Too
Meanwhile, coaches need coaches too. I receive coaching regularly from peer and mentor coaches, and I am enthralled at the feeling of accelerated growth after each of those sessions. I consider it a positive feedback loop. Do coaching and invest back a portion of those earnings into receiving coaching, grow, and do more coaching.
Here are a few recurring themes that I work together in coaching conversations with fellow Agile coaches, Scrum Masters and Product Owners, Design Thinkers:
- Communication and people challenges in the coachee’s work. Both within the team, and outside of the team challenges; such as stakeholder management and organizational alignment.
- Career development (for in house coaches) and business development challenges (for independent coaches).
- What I call “stress management for the intellects.” Now this is an interesting one. Being an Agile professional is frustrating business. Clearly, Agile is a better way of doing things, but every day we face resistance to change and mean reversion to the old, deterministic ways of waterfall – that feeling of disenchantment with organizational reality. I work with coachees on making sense of the frustration and formulating a healthier worldview around the work so that stress is reduced, coherence is restored, and energy is regained.
Coaching Startup Entrepreneurs
Been there, done that. I left banking in 2011, just before I was turning 40, to become a startup entrepreneur. My first startup bellied up in less than a year, and my next, in three years. They were expensive failures, but I learned a lot. In fact, those failures, and more there after, are the reason why I am a coach.
They say nine out of ten startups fail. That’s the name of the game and “failure porn” is part of the startup scene. But that doesn’t mean only one out of ten startup entrepreneurs will succeed. A good number of startup entrepreneurs learn from failures, persevere, manage to iterate, and eventually succeed. I don’t have any stats, but my feeling is it’s definitely more than one out of ten.
So, I have a rather optimistic view that so long as there is the learning attitude (growth mindset) and grit, the probability of success is not that against to startup entrepreneurs.
Still, learning is a long, painful and personal journey. Often, my startup entrepreneur coachees approach me when they are hitting a wall. I attract the diligent type that reads a lot, tries new things, iterates, reflects, humbly seeks advice to people around, and is seeing or starting to see decent success or promising signs of success after learning from their many rounds of failure. Nonetheless, they are hitting a wall. I am glad that at that stage they approach me, because they are ready for coaching.
How about you, are you ready for coaching?
FAQ
At our first free coaching session, we will explore and set a macro coaching goal for the initial series of coaching sessions. I typically suggest a series of six (6) x 60~90 minute coaching sessions, in weekly or bi-weekly (twice a month) frequency. A good portion of clients achieve their macro coaching goal by the end of six sessions with great results, while others may continue for a few more sessions to achieve breakthrough at their pace. These six sessions (plus a few more) series can iterate (as in Agile): after achieving their first macro coaching goal, coachees often identify their next target areas of growth and we can proceed to another series of six coaching sessions.
In a typical coaching session, we will start with setting the coaching topic and coaching goal for the day. We will then work on the topic together by clarifying the challenges and developing insights, and then create actions that will solve or advance the challenge. We will conclude the coaching session by agreeing on the action items to happen until the next coaching session, and target outcomes and measurements around them.
If you are in Singapore, we can do the coaching sessions face-to-face. Otherwise, all other sessions are done remotely via video call, such as Zoom. I coach clients in Europe and US time zones regularly.
As an ICF certified coach, I am bound by the principles of confidentiality set forth in the ICF Code of Ethics. Our coaching conversations are private, and unless required by law (such as by court order), I do not disclose any client information without the client’s consent, and will not disclose the client’s name as a reference without the client’s consent.
Without your consent, no. For company sponsored coaching sessions, each a representative from the company, coach (myself) and coachee (you) will enter into a tri-party coaching contract. Here’s a sample language on confidentiality from the contract: “The Company Client further agrees that it shall at all times accept and honor the Coach’s obligations of confidentiality to the Employee Client and shall not compel or pressure the Coach into disclosing or revealing the substance of the Coach’s meetings with the Employee Client.”
- International Coach Federation (ICF), Associate Certified Coach (ACC): credential
- International Association of Positive Psychology Coaches (IAPPC), Certified Positive Psychology Coach (CPPC) Level 2: credential
In addition, I hold the following credentials:
- Scrum.org, Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II) and Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO): credentials
- Association of Master Trainers in the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method, Certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator: credential
Yes, I do coaching in the larger context of Organization Development, and I regularly coach teams on various topics. Please consult with me on your team coaching objective.
Yes, in every coaching session we identify a coaching topic to work on and set a coaching goal. We measure results and efficacy against the coaching goal. Further, I work with coachees in setting and tracking macro coaching goals for the coaching program. If those coaching goals properly match the real needs of the coachee, then achieving the goals would normally be met with great satisfaction by the coachee. If not, or not fully, then that will typically mean a misalignment of goals with the coachee’s real needs. That is insight in itself, and we work on further exploring the coachee’s need and set a new goal for the coaching.
I have a sliding scale coaching fee schedule, and further, a pay-what-your-means-allow fee policy for those who require subsidized rates. Please enquire for details.
Yes, first coaching conversation for 60 minutes is free. Book your complimentary first session from here.
はい、日本語は母国語ですので、もちろん大丈夫です。(Japanese is my native tongue, so yes I can coach in Japanese.)
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