Working strategically and systemically alongside leaders and teams with a coaching-based approach and project structure.
Working strategically and systemically alongside leaders and teams with a coaching-based approach and project structure.
Coachingly is a way of working that synthesises 20 years of senior leadership, business and coaching experience in multi-sector, global contexts. Having worked alongside 100s of people as a Coach and a Leader, and held multinational FTSE 100 Director/Head Of positions, Nichola Selby brings a people-centred, organisationally aware approach. Clients want an intervention that will help clarify, enhance or accelerate thinking and delivery, and they recognise the value in collaborative, strategic, supportive yet challenging working. Nichola is known for her integrity and calm, open-minded professional approach which is firmly rooted in support of who she is working with, for the benefit of individuals, teams and organisations and their environments. Bringing a systemic and creative approach, Nichola works alongside clients in support of different thinking and new insight, and the development of clear and goal-focused actions, development and outcomes.
How has leadership been for you in recent times? What has the reality been? What challenges are you working through? What opportunities are there to capture? What has your team's experience been of you? What would you like to be feeling and doing in 24 months time? What is important to you? Perhaps you are considering a change? Or have made a change? What does the change mean for you and how are you approaching it? How can it be accelerated?
In a challenging period, how are the individuals in your teams feeling? What assumptions are being made? What hurdles exist, what ideas do they have, what are their wildest dreams, and fears, for themselves and the organisation? What does their personal and collective best look like and what does it take to be there? How is that growth going to be enabled? What support are you putting in place for yourself and your team? How will the impact be optimised?
How is it feeling to be part of your organisation right now? What is the future intent and how is it being achieved? How engaged and collaborative are the people around you? What is the sense amongst customers? What does the data say? How is success and top performance being defined? How is the future being thought about differently? What can be imagined? What advantages can be achieved? What needs to change and how? What else can be done?
Working alongside CEOs, senior exec and leadership teams on strategic, business and organisational challenges and opportunities requiring a structured, independent space for thinking. The clients wanted to work, in confidence, with an external coach with business experience and strategic expertise.
Working individually with senior leaders on their leadership impact, being their best selves, figuring out futures, planning careers, achieving potential and managing transitions. The clients wanted to work with a leadership coach with experience of leadership, development and careers.
Working with business leaders in strategic marketing development. Exploring the interface between customer, commerciality, colleague and environment. The clients wanted the involvement of a customer-focused external coach, with business, strategic and marketing expertise.
Working with entrepreneurial individuals and teams wanting support and challenge in the development and realisation of new ventures. The clients wanted to work with a coach with an entrepreneurial mindset, experience of entrepreneurship and bringing products and services to market.
Working with senior leaders to explore and implement the idea of a coaching culture. Also working with internal coaches wanting external coaching support to further develop their practice. The clients wanted to work with a professional coach who they could learn with and trust.
Working with leaders to move forward with transformation and complex change. The clients wanted to work with a change coach with experience of working within complex systems, identifying and building a case for change, delivering projects and managing change, with a sharp focus on people.
Clients have worked with Nichola to explore:
- Organisational culture
- Business growth
- Leadership development
- Vision and strategy
- Commercial and marketing development
- Organisational change management
- Creativity and innovation
- Communications
- Day to day organisational performance
- Coaching
- Team development
- High performance
Clients have worked with Nichola to explore:
- Resilience
- Confidence
- Communication
- Influencing
- Organisational politics
- Leading teams
- Mindset
- Conflict
- Difficult working relationships
- Decision-making
- Career optimisation
- Transition management
'Nichola is a superb coach. Her approach is calm, professional and focused on achieving a positive outcome. I found our meetings incredibly productive in terms of refining my own planning and devising a strategy for future progression of the organisation's goals and direction. She uses a range of questioning and writing techniques to enable clear thinking and planning. Nichola's coaching style enables clear thoughts and efficient decision making.'
Senior leader, leading education organisation, 2021
'Nichola has a wonderful blend of warmth & professionalism and she has become one of my most trusted suppliers over the past 12-18 months. She is an excellent listener, which of course is a crucial skill for a coach and Nichola brings that skill into her everyday conversations and relationships, always asking good questions. Nichola is undoubtedly an excellent coach who goes the extra mile for her clients. She supports the WBS CareersPlus team by providing coaching support to both our Executive MBA and Distance Learning MBA students. These are typically mid-senior level executives from a wide variety of functional, industry and cultural backgrounds. She builds strong relationships with her clients by keeping in regular contact and by being flexible, but firm, with her availability. Nichola is one of 30 coaches on the WBS Executive Coaching panel and the feedback from students has been consistently excellent.'
Sarah Jackson, Warwick Business School (WBS), 2021
'The College runs summer programmes for overseas students, comprising an accommodation and catering package, as well as bespoke language and cultural interest tuition. These programmes have run for many years, growing significantly in scale, coming to represent a key element of annual revenue. It was important for us to understand more about the dynamics of this business and establish short and medium term strategies to realise its full potential. Nichola was engaged to provide a mix of general consulting and leadership coaching for senior managers. With her support, they explored in detail the operational aspects of the business (and ways to streamline), reviewed and assessed market potential and challenges, and developed working financial models that provided insight on pricing and cost management scenarios. Much of this work involved concepts and ideas new to the team, presenting a significant learning curve, but it was an important objective that the work was a team product, not just an external review. I am especially grateful for Nichola's flexibility in tailoring the work according to the emerging needs and interests of the team, and her focus on developing the individuals' own skills to enable that to happen. The work allowed the College to move forward with its programmes agenda with renewed confidence, and a far better understanding of this very important activity. Nichola was absolutely central to achieving that result, which was in large measure attributable not only to her technical and commercial skills and understanding, but to her patient, calm, professional and supportive approach.'
Jamie Clark, Hertford College, University of Oxford, 2021
'Nichola’s style is highly personalised, she builds trust and utilises shared skills and relevant knowledge to focus on individual and team goals. Her approach actively enables and encourages different thinking and positive behavioural change, encompassing values and open discussions. I would highly recommend getting in touch with her to explore how you and your team would also benefit. Nichola has worked alongside us on projects over 5 years, and it has been a great investment in people, supported by feedback from friends and colleagues.'
Senior leader, UK national charity, 2021
The International Coaching Federation’s competencies form the basis of Nichola’s approach to coaching. She brings mastery in setting the foundation (boundaries, agreement), co-creating the relationship (trust, presence), communicating effectively (listening, questioning, summarising) and facilitating learning and results (creating awareness, goals, actions, accountability).
The client and their desired outcomes are at the heart of the coaching, and Nichola works supportively yet with challenge in support of these. She draws on a wide range of possible methods, in the moment, in service to the client.
These might include methods derived from psychological approaches, for example person-centred (solution focused, ‘Time to Think’, positive psychology), cognitive-behavioural (re-framing, thinking traps, bias, use of metaphor, assumptions) and Gestalt (raising awareness, chair work). Also drawing and writing methods.
Nichola also draws on models and approaches learned in her MBA studies and career in Barclays, for example Bridges Transition Model, force field analysis, creativity and innovation models, USP development, brand development, customer research methods, commercial analysis, strategy development models and communication models.
In career conversations, Nichola might draw on methods around purpose, strengths, values, brand and Ikigai. She can also draw on methods for stakeholder management and network development.
Nichola is a versatile coach, drawing on a wide range of possible interventions. Her style is highly personalised. She creates time to develop an understanding of what is needed, what can be provided and, importantly, to ensure a good fit. A trusted working relationship being at the core of coaching. She believes that careful formulation of the focus of the work together contributes to the response being right and time being spent efficiently with effective outcomes. Nichola also places importance on being flexible to both initial and emerging needs.
Some of the research inspiring Nichola’s approach:
1. The Entrepreneurial Mindset; McGrath & MacMillan
2. Managing Change, Creativity & Innovation; Dawson & Andriopoulos
3. The Science of Human Innovation - Explaining Creativity; Sawyer
4. Reframing Organisations; Bolman & Deal
5. Creativity: Flow; Csikszentmihalyi
6. Thinking, Fast and Slow; Kahneman
7. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organisation; Senge
8. Advanced Coaching Practice, Inspiring Change in Others; Van Nieuwerburgh & Love
9. Challenging Coaching: Going Beyond Traditional Coaching to Face the FACTS; Blakey & Day
10. Time to Think, Listening to Ignite the Human Mind; Kline
Nichola is organisationally astute, bringing extensive experience of both working within industry in an employed context and as an independent professional. This balance brings the benefit of understanding but also an external perspective. Nichola comes to new situations without judgment and without assumption which is greatly valued by her clients.
Confidentiality is at the heart of the work. Where a sponsor wishes to guide the focus of the coaching, Nichola has experience of working in a trio arrangement which is aligned with organisational need, evidences development and empowers personal responsibility towards improved performance.
Nichola is strategic in nature, with the ability to support translation into the practical. She encourages a systemic and holistic approach and is focused on bringing all coaching to a future, action-oriented conclusion. She brings a global, entrepreneurial and creative mindset to her work for the benefit of her clients, and has the ability to notice patterns, body language and what is not being said as much as what is being said.
The GROW model may be in the background of Nichola’s coaching, as appropriate, due to its ability to increase the likelihood of a conversation that will lead to change, helping to think and act differently.
Whitmore's (2009) Awareness + Responsibility = Performance is an idea central to embedding coaching practices for both the client and the coach. For the client, coaching enables them to raise their awareness, develop a sense of personal responsibility and, in viewing their situation differently, realise that they are able to move towards their goals – driving commitment and performance. Support beyond the coaching interventions can be helpful too, and clients are encouraged to think about what they will put in place.
Nichola believes that an excellent coach brings a way of being, aspects of science and of art in an integrative way in support of the client. She is committed to her ongoing professional development for the benefit of her client and works with a coaching supervisor. Nichola also invites clients to reflect on their leadership style in respect of coaching.
Nichola has an MBA (Distinction) from Warwick Business School and is a qualified Executive Coach (Distinction level), most recently refreshing her training with Henley Business School (Henley Centre for Coaching - Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching, accredited by the International Coaching Federation, Association for Coaching and the European Mentoring & Coaching Council). She has a Chartered Institute of Marketing postgrad Diploma from Cambridge Marketing College and a BA Hons (IIi) degree in Management Studies & German, with French elective, from the University of Leeds. Nichola is a French/German speaker and has lived and travelled outside the UK. Nichola believes in the importance of education and lifelong learning. She is a supporter of young people's development, having been a business mentor and national judge for Young Enterprise, and is an advocate of the Reggio Emilia approach to early years education. She appreciates the arts and nature in their broadest sense from Quentin Blake's processes as an illustrator, to authentic Chinese cookery, the design of the classic Fiat 500, to camping adventures and sea-kayaking...
Arranging an exploratory conversation. This creates time to develop an understanding of what is needed, what can be provided and, importantly, to ensure a good fit. Careful formulation of the focus of the work together contributes to the response being right and time being spent efficiently with effective outcomes. There is no charge for the exploratory conversation.
Creating a highly personalised proposal, with flexibility around both initial and emergent needs. The proposal includes a summary of understanding about client need and what the proposed response is, including steps, timing, benefits and cost. It describes what can be expected and what is requested in order to achieve the required outcomes. Applying light-touch project discipline to our work increases our combined efficiency and effectiveness.
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