We ask every client for honest feedback at the end of their programme. Here is what they have told us, along with two longer case studies that show how coaching played out in practice.
These are lightly edited excerpts from written feedback. Names and some details have been changed to protect confidentiality.
I came into coaching thinking I needed help with time management. Within three sessions it became clear that the real issue was how I handled conflict on my leadership team. My coach helped me see patterns I had been repeating for years. By session eight I was having conversations with my direct reports that I had been avoiding for months. The team noticed the difference before I did.
I joined as a newly promoted CFO and felt out of my depth in board meetings. My coach and I spent the first few sessions mapping the political dynamics of the board, then rehearsed specific conversations I needed to have with the chair. I stopped dreading board days by month two. Worth every penny.
Practical is the word I keep coming back to. No abstract leadership theory. Every session started with something I was actually dealing with that week, and I left with a clear plan for how to handle it. The between-session email support was a bonus I did not expect to use as much as I did.
Our leadership team workshop was uncomfortable. That is not a complaint. The pre-workshop interviews surfaced issues we had been politely ignoring for two years. The facilitator held the room firmly without taking sides. We left with five specific agreements, and three months later we had followed through on four of them. That is a better hit rate than any offsite we have done.
I was sceptical about coaching. I had tried it once before with a different provider and it felt like paying someone to nod and ask how things made me feel. This was different. My coach challenged me directly, pushed back on my assumptions, and held me accountable for commitments I made in session. I renewed for a second six-month programme.
The transition coaching programme helped me survive my first hundred days as a divisional MD. I was stepping into a team that had not chosen me and was not thrilled about the restructure. My coach helped me plan my first meetings, figure out who the informal power holders were, and build trust without making promises I could not keep. I would have made several expensive mistakes without that guidance.
Two longer examples of how coaching worked in practice. Details have been anonymised.
The client was a VP of engineering at a mid-size technology company. He had been promoted from a hands-on technical role eighteen months earlier and was still spending most of his time solving problems his team should have handled. His calendar was full of back-to-back meetings, many of which he attended out of habit rather than necessity.
Over twelve sessions we worked on three things. First, we audited every recurring meeting and eliminated or delegated seven of them. Second, we built a decision framework he shared with his team so they knew which problems to escalate and which to solve themselves. Third, we practised saying no to requests that did not belong at his level.
By the end of the programme he had reclaimed nine hours per week and was spending that time on the product roadmap and hiring, the two areas his CEO had asked him to prioritise.
A professional services firm had recently merged two regional offices into one. The combined leadership team of six people had overlapping responsibilities, unspoken resentments about who had "won" the merger, and no shared way of making decisions. Client retention had dropped 8% in the two quarters since the merger.
We ran confidential interviews with each leader, then facilitated a full-day workshop. The morning focused on surfacing the real issues: who felt sidelined, where decision rights were unclear, and which client relationships had fallen through the cracks. The afternoon was spent building explicit agreements about roles, escalation paths, and how the team would handle disagreements going forward.
At the six-week follow-up, the team had implemented four of their five agreements. Client retention had stabilised, and two leaders who had been considering leaving told the managing partner they felt differently about the firm's direction.
If you are curious whether coaching could help with what you are facing right now, the easiest next step is a free 30-minute call. We will listen, ask a few questions, and give you an honest answer.
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