Company Profile        Company Services        Client List        Press Room               Bring on the Coach Jillian Godsil, Business Plus Magazine, September 1999.          Owners of small businesses can benefit by adopting a personal coach who acts as a mentor and sounding board (by Jillian Godsil). The concept of coaching is well recognised in many fields, most particularly sport, where athletes continue to benefit from the ongoing advice and support from trained coaches. In recent years, the term and practise has begun to be used in business where a range of professionals, either at the top of their field or self-employed are beginning to use this service. One of the early proponents of coaching is the Prosper Group. Their involvement in coaching grew from their experience in corporate training, as co-founder and director Jonathan Bell explains. "Our goal in corporate training was to create an environment in which people could achieve their goals and reach their full potential, but increasingly we looked at what was happening after training. "In many cases we found that nothing changed. People went away with the knowledge but did not take the time to implement what they had learned. If you consider formal training as a means to educate for change, then business coaching is the means to activate for change," says Bell. But does coaching work? Yes it does according to Dublin insurance broker Kieran Murphy who runs his own firm in Terenure. Murphy has more than twenty years experience in the business but decided that he wanted some help "with the mental side of the business". He explained: " I would consider myself a fairly strong strategist and have a strong business head, but I missed being able to bounce ideas off other people. When there is no-one else at your level then it is difficult to keep looking ahead to new business opportunities. And then there are always things that can distract you away from your core focus." Murphy first decided to take twelve personal coaching sessions with the Prosper Group. Murphy met Bell once a week, then spoke to him by telephone at an appointed time the following week. "Immediately I felt better because I had someone to talk to, someone with whom I could share my business problems with. I was able to use Jonathan as a sounding board for any strategic decisions that came up. But the real bonus was that I was given an agreed programme of activities to do which kept me focused on my business priorities." Murphy now feels that his business is more organised. As a result, his income is better and he feels more in charge. "Being self-employed is a tricky situation." says Murphy "Every Monday morning you are unemployed until you decide to do something." Obstacles Jonathan Bell believes that the biggest obstacle to improving performance is in people's self-limited expectations of personal achievement and that of those around them. "For example, most people believe that lack of time prevents them from achieving business objectives but this is largely a fallacy," says Bell. "In order to achieve more, you must learn to bring applied focus to bear on the most important things. Part of that evaluation is to look at which actions will cause the greatest amount of change in the shortest amount of time. Put that into play and you can see huge differences in your performance". Brian Hudson, managing director of H&M Ironworks, has also been on the Prosper coaching programme. Hudson finds it invaluable to be able to speak with someone else who can provide meaningful feedback. "I have lots of ideas in my head but there was no-one else to galvanise me into action," said Hudson. "I had been threatening to do a couple of business initiatives for the past 12 months but nothing had happened. "Eight weeks after working with the Prosper Group I had installed a new site manager and had the bones of a new CAD system selected and installed in the office. It really does work and there is nothing of comparable benefit out there in the marketplace."

The Prosper Group Castle House, Main Street, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 Ireland Tel: 353-1-499 3160 Fax: 353-1-499 3190 Email: info@prosper-group.com