01: Realities of running or working for a coaching business

In this episode Dr Natalie Lancer, with Professor Jonathan Passmore, Xenia Angevin and Kaveh Mir, discuss the realities of running your own coaching practice or working for a large, digital coaching platform. We cover the fundamental questions to help you consider how to find your clients, decide on a niche and philosophy and tap into different coaching markets. We explore:

•    What counts more: coach expertise or experience?
•    How can coaches be tactical and strategic when navigating the gig economy of coaching?
•    How do you develop your own unique coaching identity in a business context?
•    What do you want your day-to-day coaching life to look like?
•    How has coaching evolved to where we are in the current coaching marketplace?
•    What can a coach earn, as a novice or an expert, working for a large digital platform?
•    How do you choose whether you want to work for a digital provider and which one?
•    What are the selection criteria for coaches that digital platforms use? 
•    What are the benefits and constraints when working with a digital coaching provider?
•    What are the different roles a coaching psychologist can adopt as part of their portfolio?
•    How can coaching become more inclusive as a profession?
•    Why is coaching psychology a good second career?

The digital coaching landscape is evolving and has arguably transformed coaching from a ‘cottage industry’ to a global, scalable enterprise. We query whether coaching education needs to be updated and how coaching standards can be maintained and measured to reflect this new context. Our guests today are:

Professor Jonathan Passmore is an award winning and international renowned Chartered Occupational Psychologist and the Inaugural Chair of the BPS Division of Coaching Psychologists. He has published widely, with 40 books, 150 book chapters and 100+ scientific papers. His forthcoming books in 2024 include: ‘Becoming a Team Coach: The Essential ICF Guide’ (Springer), ‘The Digital & AI Coaches Handbook’ (Routledge), ‘The Health & Wellbeing Coaches Handbook’ (Routledge) and the second edition of ‘Becoming a Coach: The Essential ICF Guide (Springer), with three new titles plus a host of research projects in progress for the future.

He is listed in the Thinkers 50 Marshall Goldsmith Top 8 Global Coaches and Global Gurus Top 30 Thought Leaders. He is currently Professor of Coaching and Behavioural Change at Henley Business School, Senior Vice President at EZRA (the coaching arm of LHH) and previously worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM Business Consulting and OPM. His current research interests include AI, digital and well-being.

Kaveh Mir is currently an ICF Global Director at the Institute of Thought Leadership and a Master Certified Coach who works with Executives on critical psychological processes using Positive Behaviour Change and evidence based Coaching Psychology. He is licensed in a portfolio of psychometric assessments tools and a BPS qualified assessor on User Test Occupational Ability and Personality. Kaveh has a degree in Computer Science, a Master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction, a Master's degree in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology and an Executive MBA. 

Kaveh has coached senior executives from international organisations such as Deloitte, Amazon, and Google. He has held various senior executive roles and was the founder of a technology start-up firm. He wrote ‘Wars at Work: An Action Guide for Resolving Workplace Battles’ which seeks to identify causes for workplace conflict and offer solutions to effectively resolve these issues.

Xenia Angevin, MBA, is a Coaching Psychologist, promoting a dialogue within the Helping and People professions, and across the scientific domains. Xenia’s specific expertise is in differential psychology and atypical neurodevelopment. She is a Principal Coaching Psychologist and Head of the Research Lab at Shimmer, directing a coaching practice portfolio for adults with ADHD, Autism and other neurodevelopmental presentations. Xenia is a Steering Group Committee member of the Neurodiversity-Affirming Research & Practice SIG at the Association for Contextual Behavioural Science.

Xenia is a Fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (2008) and has worked in complex socio-political environments for the BBC News. Xenia served as a Head of Research and Government Liaison (Diplomacy) Unit at The Royal Household of Queen Elizabeth The Second. In the past 20 years, she has focused on the professional application of non-directive approaches including coaching, mentoring, mediation, supervision, facilitation, organisational development, and policy work in support of these.

Your host, Dr Natalie Lancer, is a Chartered Coaching Psychologist, and British Psychological Society (BPS) Registered Supervisor. She is the Chair of the BPS’s Division of Coaching Psychology and an accredited member of the Association for Coaching. She is the host of this podcast series and invites you to email any comments to [email protected]

https://www.bps.org.uk/member-networks/division-coaching-psychology

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