How is executive coaching different for an owner?
In a large company, executive coaching is commissioned by the employer for a senior employee, and HR agrees the objectives with the coach. An owner has nobody above them to set objectives, approve the fee or say how the role is going. The coaching has to supply the structure a board would give an executive: written priorities, a review date and somebody who asks.
The work is the change from doing the jobs to running the people who do them. At Buzz Coaching it runs as business leadership coaching, one-to-one with Andy Jackson.
What do the sessions measure?
The leadership part of Performance on Purpose scores you out of ten on twelve areas at the start. The lowest scores set the first ninety days, and the twelve are re-scored at every quarterly review.
The scoring sheet as you first see it. You fill in each scale in the first session.
What does the work look like?
Decisions that leave your desk
A list of every decision that comes to you in a fortnight, sorted into the ones only you can make and the ones a manager could make with a clear rule. The second list is handed over, with the rule written down.
Managers who own a number
Each manager is held to a figure they can see, such as margin on their jobs or hours billed. If your management information cannot produce that figure, the session names it as a gap in the data and you decide how to close it.
The conversation you have been putting off
The underperformer, the long-serving manager whose role has outgrown them, or the business partner who wants something different. The session plans what you will say and the outcome you need, and the next session hears how it went.
Who coaches you?
Andy Jackson co-founded Buzz and runs its operations. Personal, leadership and business coaching runs with Andy, and he takes the discovery calls himself. Sessions are fortnightly, in person or by video, at £1,250 a month plus VAT with no minimum term. You can read about Andy and Peter Allen on the about Buzz Coaching page.
Frequently asked questions
Is executive coaching the same as leadership coaching?
For an owner, the work is the same. Executive coaching is the name large employers use when they pay for a coach for a senior employee. Leadership coaching is the name for the same work when the person being coached is the one in charge. At Buzz Coaching it is the Leadership Coaching programme: fortnightly one-to-one sessions with Andy Jackson on delegation, standards, developing managers and the difficult conversations, at £1,250 a month plus VAT. Progress is scored against twelve leadership areas at the start and re-scored every ninety days.
What size of business is this for?
It suits an owner-managed business that has outgrown the way the owner first ran it, often between five and fifty people. In a smaller business the owner is still doing much of the work, and the better starting point is one-to-one Business Coaching or Accountability Coaching. Above it, there is normally a layer of managers already in place, and the work moves to how they are held to account and developed. The discovery call is where the fit gets decided, and it is free and lasts thirty minutes.
How long does executive coaching take to show results?
The first changes are visible within a quarter: decisions that no longer come to you, a manager who owns a figure, a conversation that has finally happened. The scores show it too, because the twelve leadership areas are re-scored at the ninety-day review against where you started. Plan for at least six months for the pattern to hold, because the first two months take time to map how the business runs before they give any back. Every engagement is reviewed at ninety days, and there is no minimum term.
Can my managers be coached as well?
The programmes are one-to-one with the owner. The work on managers happens through you: planning how you hand over a decision, how you set the figure each manager is held to and how you hold the review conversation. If a manager needs their own development, the session works out what that should be and who should provide it. Buzz Coaching does not run group coaching, so a manager would be a separate one-to-one engagement with its own discovery call and its own fee.