Coaching

The Role of a Personal Coach

A Personal Coach is someone who you can rely upon to help you identify, prioritize and achieve your professional goals. Your Personal Coach provides you with objective input and constructive feedback that is delivered in confidence and with absolute honesty. To encourage you to optimize your performance while maintaining balance in your life is a key function of your Personal Coach.

Your Personal Coach will inspire you when the going is tough, spur you on when you are stuck and celebrate success with you when you hit each target.

-Tony Watts
Margaret J. Livingstone Coaching Solutions

Personal Coaching

Our personal coaching services are available to organizations that wish to help valued employees reach their optimum level of performance. With the overall objective of assisting individuals to heighten their effectiveness in the workplace, our coaching is specifically focused on the work dimension. Normally, however, for most people, one or more of family, social, lifestyle/health, financial and spiritual dimensions impinge upon career and affect performance in the workplace. Therefore our personal coaching invariably also touches on one or more of these life dimensions. This holistic approach moves individuals closer to achieving balance in their lives, facilitating clearer demarcation of the work boundaries. Having clarified the boundaries, we are then able to coach individuals to use best practices aimed at maximizing their personal effectiveness at work. Complementary to this we coach them to focus on work issues and to minimize the influence of non-productive factors on their individual performance. Goal setting, planning and progress monitoring often constitute a key element in our coaching process. Additionally, coaching in areas such as leadership, team building, strategic planning, visioning, creativity and calculated risk-taking frequently form part of the support given. During the coaching period individuals are provided the opportunity to fully engage in a process of personal growth, where they are encouraged to leverage on their strengths and to address developmental areas. Naturally, organizations benefit from the increased confidence and effectiveness of their employee resulting from this process.

Our personal coaching service is appropriate for any of your valued employees who are genuinely motivated to optimize their individual performance and to maximize their contribution to organizational goals. We recommend that priority be given to such individuals who fall into any of the following categories: those who are part of the organization's executive succession plan, those who are poised to take on a wider scope of responsibility, those who have plateaued or become stuck, and those who need help in coping with change or stress.

All of our personal coaching is conducted on a one-to-one basis where strict confidentiality is maintained. Coaching is not an instant results quick fix, rather it is an ongoing process of guidance, encouragement and motivation aimed at the continuous improvement of individual performance. With this in mind our personal coaching services are available for minimum periods of three months.

Prior to accepting a personal coaching assignment we meet with the employee to gain an understanding of the individual's specific situation and to broadly outline our approach. At this meeting we also define the coaching ground rules and mutual expectations. If the candidate feels less than confident in the coach and/or the potential benefits of the process, then the assignment will not be accepted and no fee will apply.