CorpComms Magazine

When Sue Clarke set off to the Isle of Sheppey in Kent last year to embark on a project helping prisoners improve their career prospects, she would have been forgiven for expecting it to test her skills as a career coach to the limit.

The biggest issue, however, was altering the mindset of the prison officers she was brought in to assist. 'There was a real culture of saying, 'We can't do that',' says Clarke. 'But I came in refusing to accept those limitations.'

In the end, the project - which lasted several months and was designed to help deter re-offending - was a success once Clarke, who works for the Fiona Harrold Consultancy, had tackled this issue of negativity. 'The whole aim was to equip prison officers with coaching techniques to help offenders learn to take responsibility and build better lives when they left prison. Prison officers already give practical assistance to offenders but with life coaching, an offender might come in with an issue, such as 'I am on drugs and that's my lot in life'. Life coaching is about challenging those pre-conceived ideas. In this case, it was about giving offenders the skills to challenge their own behaviour.'

Changing your outlook is the key that life coaches can bring to anyone struggling with their career, and in need of unlocking whatever rut they are in. And you don't have to be a prison inmate to benefit.

There are many reasons to consult a life coach about your career; the most common are feeling you are in the wrong career, or feeling that you are being held back in the career you are in. Other reasons include being bullied at work, having difficulty building a rapport with colleagues, not coping with a tricky work-life balance, worrying about redundancy, or even not feeling ready for a recent promotion.

The first thing a life coach can do is help you to understand the way in which your job interacts with other aspects of your life, and how that could be affecting you.

For example, many people discover they are unhappy because their jobs do not align well with their private values and beliefs, says Chris Wesley of Life Coaching. 'Most of us fall out of school, fall out of college, fall into a job, fall through life and fall into a coffin. Finding a career which is aligned to our values and beliefs is not something society teaches us - you might get 20 minutes with a careers adviser.'

Wesley asks clients to do a 'wheel of life' exercise with pen and paper before they start the first session, giving a score of one to 10 to each aspect of their life. 'Sometimes things are horribly interconnected,' he says. 'It can be like untying a piece of string and you need to find the right end to pull.'

Another thing Wesley seeks to correct in his clients is a frequent lack of self belief. 'The first thing I do is listen to the situation in some detail. I am listening for signs of limiting beliefs which people often do not even know that they have. People are often the problem themselves - they tend to be problem-focused rather than solution-focused.'

Jackie Fletcher, from Transitions Life Coaching, strongly agrees. 'Professionals who think they can't move on from where they are often think that they do not have transferable skills.' She recently helped a stage manager who really wanted to work with children re-train as a drama therapist, for example.

She adds that even if you have spent years getting qualifications for one career, it is never too late to switch to another. 'Whatever you have learnt in one career will never be wasted. I used to do insolvency work and I still use the skills I learnt from that; working with a director and staff in a crisis situation gives you the skills to be a life coach.'

Rebekah Fensome, an independent life coach, believes that structure is the key to empowering her clients to take charge of their careers, and become more solution-focused. She therefore aims to develop a plan of action which sets out specific goals and deadlines.

She explains: 'I send clients an introductory questionnaire to help structure the first session. Then we have a 20-minute talk to get some more context. Then we go on to complete the first action plan and define goals.

'I ask what they love and hate about the job they do, in order to create the ideal job and then put in target dates for actions. This is very results-driven in order to make change happen.'

Individuals seeking help with careers will usually have a number of sessions with a life coach to get results - some more than others. Clarke, for example, has been coaching one client for two years, seeing her through three promotions despite two redundancy programmes. She normally sees clients for around three to six months, however.

Wesley says weekly sessions allow clients to put ideas into practice between sessions in order to try them out. He adds: 'Sessions can go on for as long as it takes, but usually between four to eight sessions people have fully recognised the problem and had time to try out some new skills or ways of doing things, and then making it work.'

Corporate coaching - where companies bring life coaches in to help staff - is also becoming more popular. This can take the form of one-to-one sessions to include career coaching as well as more general life coaching - usually for more senior executives. Alternatively, it can be group coaching - more usual for middle managers or those less senior in the company. Fensome, for example, holds confidence workshops for groups of staff wanting advice on how to progress in their careers.

Sally Ann Law, an independent life coach, is a specialist in corporate coaching. She is currently coaching nine people at one organisation - a bank - on a one-to-one basis, although she also coaches groups. 'The human resources director there has made it clear that I am to help these people in any way they wish and it is all completely confidential, which is very sensible.'

Companies have found that coaches can help workers more effectively because they are impartial, and offering sessions with a life coach could help to retain disaffected staff. 'Often people in large companies don't have anyone impartial to go to for this sort of advice,' points out Fensome. 'If companies bring in a life coach, it can also increase productivity levels because people feel the company is investing in them on an emotional level.'

Clarke adds that managers, frequently expected to act as coaches themselves, sometimes carry preconceived impressions of their staff. 'If you bring a coach in and they start without knowing anything about the person, there is a clean slate.'

Law says her corporate clients call her in because they want to keep their staff. 'The main benefit to companies is retention and better performance. When people feel happier, they perform better. They also see this as a real commitment on the part of the company and they feel valued.'

Overall, a life coach can give you - or your staff - the perspective needed to change a career for the better, which must benefit both individual and organisation alike. 'My role is to inspire,' says Clarke. 'I hold the picture the client aspires to, of who they really are. It really does help to have someone giving you practical advice and cheerleading you.

'Consulting a life coach about your career gets you to step back and get a more helpful perspective, and really focus on what you truly want.'

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