Top > Coach Takeshi > Organization Development > Coaching > Individual Coaching
I help leaders turn reflection into purposeful action, through a partnership grounded in thought‑provoking conversations.
Given my expertise, clients who seek my individual coaching generally fall into four groups:
- Leaders and Executives
- Change, Transformation, Innovation Professionals
- Startup Entrepreneurs
- Agile Practitioners and Design Thinkers
Coaching Stance: How I Coach
Coaching is a space of partnership and possibility. When we work together, you can expect a relationship built on trust, clarity, and deep respect for your potential. As an ICF (International Coaching Federation) certified coach bound by its Code of Ethics and Core Competencies, I practice coaching as a disciplined craft — a partnership grounded in thought-provoking conversations that unlock self-awareness, creativity, and purposeful action. You are the expert in your life and work; my role is to walk alongside you, ask sharper questions, and hold space for your answers to emerge. This isn’t about giving advice or fixing problems — it’s about uncovering the resourcefulness that’s already within you.
Yet we all learn differently, so I stay open to what is needed. Coaching sits on a continuum with mentoring, training, facilitation, and advising. Sometimes, when you are stuck or exploring what else is possible, you might find inspiration in a fresh perspective or a reframing of the situation. After all, one of the biggest challenges in learning is the “unknown unknowns” — we don’t know what we don’t know. When needed — and only when you ask — I can draw from other learning modalities to support you in a way that fits your context. Over the years, I’ve built a latticework of mental models — a term from Charlie Munger — to support this. You can explore them at agile-od.com/knowledge-base. With flexibility, courage, and compassion, I meet you where you are and support where you want to go.
Coaching Leaders and Executives
As a former front‑line banking executive, I speak the corporate language and understand the organizational code. Today, I combine that experience with the disciplines of behavioral coaching, process coaching, and organization development. Because I view organizations through five interlocking lenses — people, process, structure, product, and customer — I remain first a coach, but when requested, I can extend the conversation to share practical knowledge, skills, and tools across those dimensions.
The New Leadership Reality
Work today is digital, social, and relentlessly networked. AI accelerates this shift, moving work from task‑based labor to insight‑ and knowledge‑driven strategic roles. As a result, the leader’s role is evolving from command‑and‑control decision maker to collaboration facilitator for teams of networked knowledge workers. Authority alone no longer moves people; clarity, mentor‑coaching, and systems thinking do.
Leaders who come to me are often juggling intense, sometimes conflicting pressures: aligning cross‑functional stakeholders who see the world through different lenses; making high‑stakes decisions with imperfect data and little time; breaking silos and bottlenecks while modeling new ways of working; and sustaining their own clarity and resilience amid constant change. Many say they feel isolated at the top or trapped in a loop of “urgent” tasks that crowd out strategic thinking.
In our coaching, we slow the pace, surface hidden assumptions, and explore fresh perspectives that make complexity manageable rather than overwhelming. The work is reflective yet practical — helping you clarify what matters most, decide where to focus energy, and communicate with purpose so others move with you.
If you need a confidential space to sharpen strategy and translate reflection into purposeful action, let’s explore whether this partnership is the right fit.
Book Discovery Call Contact FAQCoaching Change, Transformation, Innovation Professionals
Available also as a training program: Innovation Manager’s Toolkit
Change agents, transformation leads, and innovation managers — “CTIOs” — are the corporate equivalent of Rangers or Special Ops: elite talent chosen for missions that will shape the organization’s future. The difference? Rangers receive rigorous training before deployment; CTIOs are dropped into uncharted territory without a playbook. Meanwhile, the organization is impatient for results and relentless about status updates. Left to their own devices, CTIOs often feel overwhelmed, unsupported, and alone.
Dedicated expert training for CTIOs is critically needed, and I address that gap through my Innovation Manager’s Toolkit program. Yet for CTIOs already on the ground, specialized coaching can make all the difference.
Coaching Complexity Handling
The core of supporting CTIOs is mastering complexity handling. Complexity isn’t new; humanity has confronted it for millennia through trial and error, and modern management science has translated those lessons into smarter approaches such as Lean, Design Thinking, and Agile. A coach becomes a powerful partner on this journey — helping you interpret these frameworks, test ideas safely, and adapt them to real‑world constraints.
I meet complexity every day as a serial start‑up entrepreneur and as a consultant, trainer, and facilitator for large‑scale organizational change. If you’re facing similar challenges and need a battle‑tested partner, I bring trench‑level experience — armed with a large arsenal of change and innovation tools, distilled into mental models I share dynamically through coaching, and mentoring. Let’s explore whether this partnership is the right fit.
Book Discovery Call Contact FAQCoaching Startup Entrepreneurs
Been there, done that. I left banking in 2011, just before turning forty, to become a startup entreprenuer. My first venture went belly-up in under a year; the next folded three years later. They were expensive failures, and I learned a great deal. In fact, those experiences (and the ones that followed) are why I became a coach.
Conventional wisdom says nine out of ten startups fail, but that doesn’t mean only one in ten entrepreneurs ever succeeds. The entrepreneurs who prevail learn from setbacks, keep iterating, and eventually gain meaningful traction. With a growth mindset and grit, the odds begin to shift in your favor.
Lean In to Coaching
Learning can still be a long, painful journey. The founders who come to me are diligent: they read voraciously, experiment, reflect, seek advice, yet something isn’t clicking. That’s where coaching can be transformative — providing a sounding board, fresh perspective, and strategic clarity.
How about you — are you ready for coaching?
Book Discovery Call Contact FAQCoaching Agile Practitioners and Design Thinkers
Through our Agile OD work, I regularly collaborate with internal and external Agile coaches, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Design Thinking facilitators, Lean practitioners, and others. Our struggle is common — it’s always about people. We process experts have the tools, frameworks, and methods, but people behave in so many unexpected ways that plans go off course and funny things happen inside organizations.
Developing People Expertise
Early in my coaching career — as an Agile coach myself — I realised frameworks alone weren’t enough. I looked for breakthrough by studying behavioral coaching and practicing organization development. Becoming an ICF PCC and training in ORSC (Organization & Relationship Systems Coaching) helped greatly, yet the real learning came from applying those lessons through trial and error in client engagements. The result is a blended approach that integrates process rigour with deep understanding of communication, relationships, resistance to change, decision making, and power dynamics.
Because I’ve been in your shoes, I can offer coaching that fluidly combines classic coaching, mentor‑coaching, and supervision — meeting you at the intersection of people and process. Coachees say that our work fundamentally deepens their practice and confidence. If you’re ready to move beyond framework mastery and address the human complexity that defines our profession, let’s explore how a coaching partnership can elevate your practice.
Book Discovery Call Contact FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
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.)
Coaching Credentials & Bio
Career Summary
With three decades of front‑line business experience, I began my career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, structuring complex deals across Asia‑Pacific. After nearly 20 years in banking, I pivoted to entrepreneurship, launching several start‑ups before founding Agile Organization Development in 2017 — now a global collective of 30‑plus expert coaches and OD practitioners who help organizations change, transform, and innovate. I hold an MBA from INSEAD, where I now lecture, coach, and train in executive programmes, blending the latest insights in management science with everyday, practical application.
(→ Full bio)
Client Testimonials
Coach Takeshi’s Journal
Misjudging Ourselves and Others Under Pressure: The Hot-Cold Empathy Gap
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Deciding Well on a Bad Day: Integral and Incidental Emotions
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Coach Takeshi’s Pedagogy (v2024)
I use four mental models to describe my pedagogy (theory and practice of education): Why They Matter Structured learning provides … Read More
Reflections on “Think like a farmer”
This visual on “Think like a farmer” has been going around on LinkedIn for a while. It’s good advice and … Read More
The Many Faces of a Learning Professional
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Gong Xi Fa Cai 2023!
Gong Xi Fa Cai! Wishing all those who celebrate the Lunar New Year a wonderful 2023 ahead! After another fruitful … Read More
30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s according to Confucius
Confucius once said, “At fifteen my heart was set on learning, at thirty I stood firm, at forty I had … Read More
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