Author: Mike

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Six ways to get mentally fit and take on 2024

14 December 2023

With 2023 drawing to a close, Mindbeat’s head of client and product development, Jessica Bellwood sources six techniques to improve mental fitness in 2024 from our network of coaches

For many, 2023 has been a challenging, uncertain year. Team leaders have had to manage employees worried about, amongst other things, the cost of living crisis and rising interest rates.

Looking after your talent has never been more important. But as anyone who has ever travelled by plane knows, in an emergency you must fit your oxygen mask before helping others to fit theirs. 

For improved performance, this means looking after your own mental and physical wellbeing. Only then can you support others and consistently respond to challenges, in the face of ever-increasing pressure and rapid change. 

Often, people only focus on the physical side – building in time for the gym or to go running. Mental fitness is equally important.

In practice, mental fitness means strengthening the part of the brain used in decision-making and social behaviour. Leaders should look for improvements in areas such as focus, time management, plus positive and critical-thinking skills.

In 2001, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz coined the term ‘corporate athlete’ in an article for the Harvard Business Review. They asserted that an ‘Ideal Performance State’ only occurs when physical, emotional and mental capacities work harmoniously together. 

As many of us vow to return to exercise with the dawning of a new year, we should consider the brain a muscle that also requires regular workouts. It will help you to build capacity for key leadership traits such as endurance, flexibility, self-control and focus.

So what can you do to get mentally fit for 2024?

We asked Mindbeat’s network of coaches for six techniques to improve mental fitness.

1. Recognise what drives you to behave in habitual reactive ways. 

In periods of stress, our heart rate, respiration rate and blood pressure increase. At the same time, our intelligence dulls. We are easily distracted and our thoughts are muddled, which can lead to irrational and impulsive choices. This shows up when leaders get defensive or react in the heat of the moment. To overcome this, train yourself to pause, identify your mood state and choose to act differently. 

2. Improve focus by not task-switching

Focus is simply, the amount of energy concentrated on a specific task or goal. When that concentration is interrupted, the energy dissipates. Research indicates that it may take over 20 minutes to regain focus on what we were previously working on. With each interruption, leaders have less time to complete the task, resulting in heightened feelings of time pressure and stress. 

So try to limit distractions, the ability for people to interrupt you, and avoid ‘task-switching’. 

It takes longer and uses up more energy to complete different tasks if you are constantly switching between different types of activities and mental states. 

3. Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is the ability to bring non-judgmental awareness to your thoughts and emotions, exercise attention and focus to overcome distractions, and bring an open, curious mindset to every situation.

A leader who can identify their behaviour and broaden their lens will be a more effective leader who can partner with others and create deeper connections. 

4. Train your attention with meditation

Meditation, typically viewed as a spiritual practice, can serve as a highly effective means of training attention and promoting mental energy recovery. Practised regularly, it quietens the mind, brings your emotions back into check and rejuvenates your thought processes. 

Meditation in the workplace can be something as simple as sitting quietly and breathing deeply, counting each exhalation and starting over when you reach ten. 

5. Boost emotional wellbeing with visualisation 

Visualisation is proven to produce positive energy and heightened performances amongst athletes and can do the same for workplace capabilities.

Take the time to contemplate what you want from a meeting or team review. Then visualise yourself achieving the outcome. 

By exercising your mental muscles, you’re increasing cognitive strength, endurance and flexibility. As a result, you’ll decrease the likelihood of being distracted by negative thoughts under pressure and feel more relaxed and confident. 

6. Build-in recovery time

A good work-life balance is vital for improving mental fitness. Despite their article for Harvard Business Review being more than 20 years old, Loehr and Schwartz’s opinions on how to become a corporate athlete still ring true today – namely that the real enemy of high performance isn’t stress. Rather, the problem is the absence of disciplined, intermittent recovery. 

Chronic stress without recovery depletes energy reserves, leads to burnout and breakdown, and ultimately undermines performance.

So make time for loved ones and laughter, set parameters such as no working on the weekend or no work discussions after dinner, plan that dream holiday, and resolve to take on the new year a more balanced, energised leader. 

Speak to Mindbeat about how our network of expert coaches can help your teams improve mental fitness to increase performance and work-life balance. 

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AI-powered coaching trials get underway

4 December 2023

As part of Mindbeat’s drive to make digital coaching accessible to all, we’re delighted to announce that we’ve begun trialling an AI-powered coach.

Our fully automated coach is designed to support individuals on a day-to-day basis, helping them to reflect on experiences, set goals, tackle challenges and explore different perspectives through incisive questioning and intuitive, personalised content, designed to provide guidance and support. 

We see the combination of human coaches with AI coaches as potentially a powerful solution, ensuring that employees at all levels feel supported for personal growth during the moments that matter.

Further updates will be available in 2024. 

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Mindbeat secures ISO 27001

30 November 2023

Mindbeat is proud and delighted to announce that it has achieved ISO 27001 certification for Information Security Management. 

ISO 27001 accreditation validates our strict approach to keeping our client’s data safe and ensures continued rigour in our security and processes. 

To achieve the standard, Mindbeat was assessed on information security risks, its robust security controls and processes, and our embedded information security management across the organisation.

The ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management standard details the requirements for businesses to securely manage information assets and data to an internationally recognised level. 

It provides a robust approach for managing assets such as customer and employee details, intellectual property, financial information and third-party data.

 

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Adapting to the unstoppable march of AI

20 November 2023

How will leaders adapt to workplace cultures ruled by AI? Mindbeat’s Head of Client and Product Development, Jessica Bellwood offers five adaptation strategies for leaders to thrive in an AI-empowered world. 

During an interview at the closing session of the UK’s AI Safety Summit this month, Elon Musk described a world in which AI would be able to do everything and could cover every job.

Many professions have taken umbrage at Musk’s suggestion that all workers can one day be replaced by robots. However, the role that we as humans play, the way that we connect with technology, and the value that we bring will change so we need to be on the front foot.

As humankind continues to evolve AI’s exponentially increasing power, workplace productivity will naturally accelerate. Leaders therefore need to focus on how to adapt to this transformational change while developing their team’s softer, more human skills in readiness for a brave new fully-automated world. 

Here are Mindbeat’s five leadership adaptation strategies for an AI-empowered world

1. Think future first

What can be automated will be automated in an AI-empowered workplace. So leaders need to embrace new skills, expertise and judgement in areas such as data tracking, simulation, virtual modelling, programmatic and other fields where AI will reign supreme.

Technology will close the data-insight gap and improve decision-making capabilities, especially in time-critical, high-pressure situations. However, the resulting deluge of data will only turn up the volume and intensify the pressure to make the right choices. This will require you to retain your focus and surround yourself with trusted ‘human’ experts.

2. Assess current workplace skills and the shift needed

Hard skills can make you and your teams good at one job, but soft skills can help you all excel at many jobs.

Professional development in an AI-dominated world will require an enhanced ability to capitalise on the serendipity of human interaction that machines cannot emulate. So recruit people with strong social skills, encourage in-person interactions with clients and colleagues, and find ways to build your brand in the real ‘in-person’ world.

3. Don’t let your teams become predictable

Remember that Generative AI (ChatGBT and other AI-powered language models) responds with crowd-sourced wisdom and predictive answers. Its workplace adoption is, therefore, more likely to homogenize and standardise, rather than individualise your team’s output.

Written and visual content (marketing, advertising, digital etc) still needs to stand out and cut through in a noisy environment where everyone is in danger of sounding the same.

So, encourage creative individualism and nurture human values, tone of voice and original thought. When everyone else is turning to AI-driven solutions, creative, human uniqueness is what will set you apart from the competition. 

4. Equip your people for the future

Standard Chartered’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Tanuj Kapilashrami told the One Young World summit in October that it had analysed those ‘sunset’ jobs that will disappear over the next three to five years and those ‘sunrise’ jobs, which are likely to replace them.

The findings spelt alarming news for female professional development since more women currently work in ‘sunset’ roles and fewer women work in STEM, data science and technology.

AI therefore has the potential to undo all the hard work done to ensure positive gender balance across the workplace. To avoid this, focus on reskilling and forging new professional development pathways. Encourage a diverse workforce to develop new workplace skills as well as adapt those skills they may already possess from side hustles and outside interests.

As Kapilashrami says: “In an AI-powered world, skills will become the currency of work. As leaders and organisations, we stopped being the custodians of jobs a long time ago. We’re now the custodians of skills.”

5. Build a culture open to experimentation and personal growth

Leaders who regularly stray outside their comfort zones and refuse to shy away from bold and disruptive thinking are better prepared for adaptation or pivoting to new business models.

Encourage your teams to view challenges from new perspectives, be more agile and experiment with AI tools to assess potential and competitive advantages. This may require some unlearning as new ways of working come to the fore, so ensure staff are open to progressive ideas and not tied to ‘how we’ve always done things’.

Look for alternative ways to develop your personal growth as well. Our digital coaches encourage leaders to maintain outside interests, speak at conferences, mentor emerging talent and engage in other activities that will elevate their humanity in an increasingly automated world. 

Be prepared

Elon Musk’s futuristic view of where the workplace is heading was certainly short-sighted but it did serve as a timely reminder to leaders that as the influence of AI increases, human values and the importance of diverse skills are vital tools for professional growth. 

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The beating heart of Mindbeat

10 November 2023

Did you know that in 2021, only 2% of all awarded capital in the UK went to female-founded businesses? Mindbeat’s CEO and Co-founder, Elisa Krantz was part of that 2%. She discusses her journey of global resilience and hard-fought entrepreneurialism with Mike Fletcher. 

Mindbeat’s Elisa Krantz (or Ellie as she’s happy to be called) undoubtedly has the entrepreneurial family gene. 

Her late Swedish grandmother was a pioneer for women succeeding in business, overcoming the male-dominated worlds of venture capitalism and golf to build what became one of the largest golf courses in the Nordics at the time. 

Her Maltese family meanwhile built a property and cross-industry franchise organisation in Malta. Much of her teenage years on the Mediterranean island were spent listening to stories around the dinner table of her family’s businesses, which introduced luxury car marques such as BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Audi to the people of Malta; plus beverages including Coca-Cola, Schweppes and several well-known beer brands. 

Perhaps though, what sets Ellie apart from other successful female entrepreneurs is how the blend of different nationalities in her life, (she moved from living on the Swiss-Italian border to Malta at age 10, has a Swedish father, Maltese mother and an Australian husband), informs her identity as a global citizen and ensures she never lets borders get in the way of new opportunities. 

For instance, the idea of Mindbeat first came to her as a 29-year-old, sent to India by YSC, a CEO advisory and leadership consultancy she’d worked for during spells in London and Hong Kong. 

“It was my first leadership and P&L role and although I had people who supported me in-house, there was no structured mentoring or outside guidance in place,” Ellie recalls. “I had to learn through intuition and by leaning into my relational values. I just thought, wouldn’t it be great if I had an external coach or mentor whom I could talk to about issues I can’t speak to my colleagues about, and who knows how to navigate the cultural nuances of starting a new business in India?”

Much of Ellie’s experience at the time was in leadership consultancy, working with CEOs and senior leadership teams to provide coaching, develop more effective workflows and advise on cultural change. 

“I noticed that, while the work we did at the top-end of organisations would be impactful and effective, when you took a pulse-check with people over time, four to five layers down into the company not much ever changed,” Ellie admits. “The ‘trickle-down’ approach simply doesn’t work in isolation. To truly make change happen and to make it stick, it needs to be driven from the inside out so that it permeates the wider workplace ecosystem. This is where coaching and technology, which are strongly aligned to the needs, cultural imperatives and language of an organisation have such a transformational role to play.”

The Mindbeat seed germinated for ten years until Ellie began working with her co-founders, Joanne Payne and (for the initial 18 months) Mike Stivala, who would help her by recruiting a network of brilliant coaches and by building the technology.

Their first client was a high-profile retailer who needed digital coaching and development for store managers and district managers. 

“The speed at which we built the initial platform and recruited our first 60 coaches was like jumping out of a plane and building the parachute on the way down,” she exclaims. “For the first time, managers had coaches working shoulder-to-shoulder with them to implement learnings into day-to-day business practices and to hold them accountable for driving cultural change.

Ellie and her start-up team had raised initial funding with anchor investor Go Ventures, which specialised in supporting and accelerating technology start-ups in Malta. 

Following her return to London, Ellie faced her toughest challenge yet – raising more start-up funding within the UK’s male-dominated VC markets to realise her Mindbeat dream of further expanding the business. 

She explains: “In 2021, only 2% of all awarded capital went to female-founded businesses so it was, and still is, incredibly tough for women launching a business and seeking VC funding here in the UK.

“I experienced a powerful dynamic at play in the UK’s fund-raising world – predominantly male networks that can be hard to break into, coupled with unconscious female gender traits when pitching, such as being overly cautious, risk-averse and not over-inflating your figures.  

“If you’re not aware of this, as a female entrepreneur you expose yourself to a form of gender bias. On the one hand, you run the risk of being seen as ‘not being ambitious enough’ while on the other hand, investors tend to halve your projections or valuation, partly as a negotiation tactic and partly because they assume the majority of people who pitch inflate the potential.”

“It’s a cultural dynamic that needs to change,” Ellie continues. “I’d like to see the UK Government do more to bridge the gender divide and find new ways to encourage female entrepreneurs into business without them having to be untrue to themselves or the value they place on their business idea.” 

Since then, Mindbeat’s digital coaching offer has had a hugely positive impact on the measurability of organisational change.

It has led more companies to understand the commonality between stronger leaders, thriving teams and better business. Supporting business transformation and supporting individuals earlier in their careers can now go hand-in-hand.

Looking back, Ellie says it was her Swedish grandmother’s achievement of turning the property she’d inherited into a renowned golf course that had always made her feel that anything was possible.

As for the future? Ellie smiles: “I always say, we’re not in the business of coaching, we’re in the business of change and growth. Our technology and content will keep evolving and with our fantastic team of people and the best coaches from across the world, we’ll grow a company that makes a real difference.”

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Key Challenges Facing Leaders in the Retail Sector

30 October 2023

To receive your free copy of our latest Mindbeat Insights report, please email [email protected].

The findings in our Key Challenges Facing Leaders in the Retail Sector report are based on discussions with coaches across five continents and 33 different countries, working for retailers across the grocery, fashion, cosmetics, healthcare and luxury goods sectors to name just a few.

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Four challenges for retail leaders and how coaching is providing the solutions

26 October 2023

According to Mindbeat’s global network of coaches, retail leaders struggle with long-term planning,  innovation, collaboration and professional development. Our Partnerships Director, Simon Morris looks at each of these challenges and asks how coaching is helping retailers to reframe their thinking. 

Retailers have made a stuttering start to the 2020s. The turn of the decade brought with it excitement and optimism that artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality and increased swathes of customer data would transform the way we shop, presenting retail leaders with enhanced opportunities for personalisation and technological innovation both in-store and online. 

However, the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, political instability, rising inflation and supply chain issues have all taken their toll. 

Retail leaders have had to fire-fight and adapt rather than innovate and grow. Leadership skills such as recruitment, staff retention and strategic investment have all suffered as consumer behaviours evolve and retail experience expectations shift and continue to change. 

In its Retail Trends report for 2023, Deloitte believes that retailers are now ‘finally ready to get out of first gear’ – highlighting the importance of strong, effective and empathetic leadership to capitalise on the tailwinds of opportunity still blowing through the retail landscape. 

“Leadership is a theme that runs throughout all our trends, whether it is making strategic investments or decisions on cutting costs to unlock value, ensuring your business stays focussed on the customer experience in the face of extreme challenges, pushing your net zero agenda or transitioning to a skills-based organisation. However, leadership is not just demonstrated in the boardroom. To be successful, retailers will need employees across their organisations to step up and demonstrate leadership traits.” Deloitte’s Retail Trends 2023

With these words ringing in our ears, we spoke with those Mindbeat coaches around the world who work with retail leaders and their teams across the grocery, fashion, cosmetics, healthcare and luxury goods sectors.

They gave us the four most common challenges they’re helping retailers navigate and the leadership initiatives they’re encouraging clients to implement. Let’s look at each in turn. 

Four key challenges facing retail leaders today

  1. Short-term focus versus long-term strategic thinking

Almost 90% of our coaches report that retail leaders lack the ability or head space to think long-term. This remains a hangover from the Pandemic when reactive decision-making and short-term survival trumped longer-term strategic planning. 

Junior leaders in particular still find themselves caught up in immediate, day-to-day issues and feel constrained by a focus on KPIs and quarterly results. 

How is coaching helping? 

Leadership coaching centres on effective delegation, setting aside time for planning and reflection, fostering a team environment conducive to individual growth, and ensuring that everyone can perform at their best. 

2. Openness to experimentation and innovation

Almost 60% of our coaches say that retail leaders are avoiding experimentation and innovation due to organisational views of failure. The association between financial rewards, bonuses, and promotions often casts failure in a negative light, discouraging individuals from taking risks. 

When organisations do encourage innovation, the crucial element of trust is often missing, leaving leaders fearful of the ramifications associated with perceived failure. 

How is coaching helping? 

Organisations that prioritise talent retention are often more inclined to embrace a culture of ‘failing forward’ and risk-taking. Leaders are coached to create workplace environments where making mistakes is acceptable, provided there’s an open dialogue around growth and learning through trial and error and a demonstration of trust from the top down. 

3. Collaboration across borders

Over 60% of Mindbeat coaches agree that retail leaders tend to operate within silos and lack the ability or motivation to collaborate across boundaries. 

This is mostly due to organisational cultures that prioritise competition over collaboration. There is also a disconnect between headquarters and store-level managers, which can leave stores understaffed or under-resourced. 

How is coaching helping? 

Our coaches highlight a need for more retail organisations to establish formal processes that promote collaboration and foster a learning culture, facilitating the exchange of ideas and insights. The transition from functional management to cross-functional leadership demands that leaders focus on enhancing their abilities to influence, build internal and external stakeholder networks, and encourage collaboration. 

4. Investing time in personal and professional development

Some 97% of Mindbeat coaches report that retail leaders struggle to find time for their own personal and professional growth. While 84% say that retail leaders lack sufficient time to invest in their team’s development. 

Coaches see leaders who are stuck in an ‘it’s quicker if I do it myself’ mindset, those who report the absence of a supportive culture that encourages dedicating time for self-improvement, plus many who grapple with issues relating to employee retention, often addressing development needs reactively rather than through a strategic approach. 

How is coaching helping?

Retail leaders use coaching to develop accountability, set boundaries, serve as role models, and boost confidence. They’re encouraged to consider the strategic implications of their own development, employ creative time management, and delegate effectively. 

Conclusion

Retail leaders who make time for thinking longer-term by anticipating threats and developing an organisational culture that encourages risk-taking, self-improvement and innovation will reap the benefits.

Developing more collaborative and cross-functional leadership skills such as confidence, establishing boundaries, setting up high-performing teams, engaging in honest conversations, tailoring a leadership style depending on the audience and developing stronger networks, will enable retailers and their teams to face a more assured future together. 

To read the full report or to discuss Mindbeat coaching for retail leaders and their teams, please email [email protected]. 

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How to make the last quarter of the year count in business

9 October 2023

Mindbeat’s head of client and product development, Jessica Bellwood discusses a medal-winning strategy for keeping performance high and teams focused through to the end of the year and beyond. 

As the leaves turn and the days get shorter, organisations are turning their attention to the final three months of the business calendar and how, in particular, teams are set up to achieve year-end goals and surpass financial or performance-based targets. 

It’s a challenge often made harder by hybrid working arrangements and 24/7 digital connectedness, which have introduced more workplace distractions than ever before. 

Countless teams will underperform and businesses will suffer this quarter due to our inability to focus on a single task for the time required to get the job done properly.

According to one recent poll of 1,600 employees and managers, more than 60% admitted that they rarely do even two hours of focused work each day without distraction. 

So how do you keep your teams focused and year-end objectives firmly in the cross-hairs?

As an athletics fan, I’m excited about next year’s Paris Olympics. But I already know that the long-distance running medals will go to those athletes who set a steady pace for themselves from the off, conserve their energy for when it’s most needed, and then give it their all to finish on the podium. 

In business, the last quarter is your sprint finish. So, to be in with a chance of winning Gold you need to understand at what pace your team has been running, how much energy they have left in the tank and then find a way to tap into those reserves for a strong finish. 

Prioritise for a greater payoff

Start by bringing your team together to review priorities so that distractions don’t creep in. 

Then, help them to agree on the best use of their available energy. Who needs to be directly involved and whose time could be better spent in a more supportive or administrative role? How will you measure success on a daily, weekly or monthly basis to ensure your team stays on track?

Making the last quarter count is all about ruthless prioritisation so that you remove roadblocks to team productivity and invest time and energy only in those tasks with the greatest payoffs. 

Measures to encourage focus

You can’t expect every member of your team to have the same laser-like focus as an Olympic athlete. But you can help them shut out everyday distractions so that they feel more in control and less overwhelmed by what’s left to achieve in the year. 

As neuroscientific research shows, the key to achieving huge team goals is to have the right skill sets in place to execute collective action, while optimising individual focus, task control and working memory capacity.

One way to encourage focused work is to put it on the calendar. Empower teams to block out certain days or times of the week for focused work. 

During these hours, no one (including you as team leader) is allowed to schedule meetings or interrupt workflow.

Notifications are turned off, phones are put away and unrelated emails go unanswered. 

Say ‘no’ well and discourage multitasking

Our brilliant Mindbeat coaches talk a lot about learning to say ‘no’ well and avoiding ‘switch-tasking’ (or multitasking as I’ve always known it). 

Encouraging staff to say ‘no’ well is about normalising a workplace culture in which employees understand their priorities and feel able to express themselves if they’re feeling overwhelmed or can’t move outside of their prioritised lanes. 

Avoiding ‘switch-tasking’ is about everyone’s collective understanding that spinning plates at work makes you less productive and reduces the amount of working memory available for the one task that could really matter. 

Instead of giving it their all, if your team is juggling requests and flitting between meetings, emails and the task you’ve asked them to prioritise, they’ll only provide a fraction of their aptitude for something that could make all the difference between end-of-year success or under-performance.

For many businesses, the last quarter of the calendar is the most important one as success or failure will shape the outlook for the year ahead. 

By formalising individual focus and team priorities while having the right support in place, not only will you make the last quarter count, but you’ll also set yourself up for success of Olympic proportions in 2024 and beyond. 

Talk to Mindbeat about how our network of expert coaches can help your teams remain focused and prioritise success. 

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Feature update: Group coaching scheduling made easy with Mindbeat

27 September 2023

Did you know that group coaching is now even easier on the Mindbeat platform with our improved scheduling tool?

Participants can simply register and choose the dates that work best for them, which removes any back-and-forth or diary clashes.  

Arranging three-way sessions between the coach, participant and Line Manager has also been made more seamless. Simply agree on a date, select the session type and the Mindbeat platform will connect everyone automatically. 

“Having a technical team in-house means we have the scope and capability to continually develop our platform,” said Mindbeat’s Head of Coaching and Co-Founder, Joanne Payne. “We continue to refine our approach and improve our product to ensure we deliver the very best working environment for our fantastic coaches.”

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Meet a Mindbeat coach: Søren Holm

25 September 2023

Mindbeat is privileged to offer a global network of expert coaches. In the first of a new series of interviews to introduce you to our much-loved coaching personalities, Mike Fletcher talks tomatoes, training and playing the accordion with Søren Holm, who lives in Sweden. 

Søren Holm brightened my day even before he began to speak. Admitting him to our Zoom call, the 66-year-old former vice-president of the International Coaching Federation (ICF) appeared on my computer screen wearing a fuchsia-coloured shirt and holding a beautifully crafted accordion. 

“I’ve been trying to learn how to play this instrument ever since my wife bought it for me 15 years ago,” he confesses. “I keep picking it up, learning a bit but then leaving it alone for too long so I have to start over.”

It seems the business of coaching leaves little time for accordion playing. After our chat, Søren will need to dive straight onto another Zoom call with a new client who wants him to develop a career progression programme for future female leaders. He then has a one-to-one session with a female mobile communications executive based in Iraq. 

“It’s a huge privilege to coach people of different nationalities, backgrounds and cultural characteristics,” Søren says. “My background is in behavioural science, so understanding different cultural traits and seeing how different people learn and grow is fascinating to me. 

“I once had a spate of coaching candidates from The Netherlands, who are thought of here in Sweden as being very direct and outspoken. I found out through our coaching sessions that they felt pressure in business to live up to this national stereotype of being forthright, when in fact many of them were much more introverted.” 

Søren’s coaching strengths

Søren’s coaching strengths lie in his ability to listen, ask considered questions and provide the much-needed space required for candidates to develop new thinking that leads to growth. 

He admits he’s never had a coaching specialism but in an increasingly noisy world, his calm and amiable style must be a welcome breather from the turmoil of the corporate workplace for any level of employee. 

“The whole point of coaching is to help someone move in the direction they want to go. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that,” he says. “I talk with people on an equal footing, which is rare in any profession as usually there’s one person who’s the expert or the authority. I listen, we talk and I contribute perspectives that help shape their thinking. 

“It’s not about getting them to move – it’s about helping them figure out where they’d like to get to, what’s preventing them from getting there and how you navigate the roadblocks.”

Søren now lives 100 km from Stockholm but grew up in Denmark and spent three formative teenage years living in the US. He coaches in Danish, Swedish and English but can also get by speaking in German, Spanish and French. 

By his admittance, he’s ‘been around the coaching industry a long time’. In fact, he’s believed to have been one of the first professional coaches to have operated from the Nordic region  – although he’s quick to acknowledge that it’s a claim he finds hard to substantiate. 

He did however help to launch the ICF’s Nordic Chapter and has served for five years on the ICF global board, helping to drive the organisation’s growth throughout Europe. In 2022, he was inducted into the ICF’s Circle of Distinction. 

Early adopter

Søren was almost certainly the ICF’s first Nordic member though and considers himself a pro-typical early adopter of not only the discipline of coaching but most things in life. 

“I’m not sensible enough to wait for second or even third generations of technology. I have to be among the first to get my hands on the latest Apple product or experiment with new gadgets,” he says with a laugh. 

“I like to keep up with new thinking in behavioural science too. The last 15-20 years of data-driven research into personalities is so different from the traditional Jung and Freud ideology taught in the early Eighties. I subscribe to newsletters and extracts of research papers and receive a bunch every day that I read and find interesting. Some people stop learning as soon as they leave school. I just love learning and understanding new things.”

Søren rarely travels to coach in person these days, partly because he’s grown more conscious of his carbon footprint and ‘no longer wishes to fly’. 

Virtual coaching suits him anyhow. His original training to qualify as a coach was conducted over the phone with a US company, long before video conferencing came along. 

“Through Mindbeat, I can now meet candidates across the globe from the comfort of my own home. I do one-to-ones and group sessions involving line managers and team leaders so that we can work through appraisals and everyone from an organisation has bought into a thoroughly planned out process,” he says. “The advantages to meeting and talking to people face-to-face are so small that they’re outweighed by the practicalities of being able to coach and receive coaching online from wherever you are in the world.”

In theory, the absence of travel that comes with virtual coaching should afford Søren at least evenings and weekends to continue teaching himself the accordion. I get the impression though that he prefers to spend quality time with his grandchild as well as outside with his keen gardener wife, tending to his tomato plants.

“When I finally retire, I’d like to grow tomatoes semi-professionally,” he says. “It’s the visual appeal of all the different colours, sizes and shapes – you just can’t buy anything like organically grown tomatoes in the supermarket and they certainly don’t taste the same.”

Still, just as learning and growth development occur over time with the right coaching programme, the same commitment and patience that Søren already shows his tomato plants will see him one day become an accomplished accordion player, I’m sure of it. 

Perhaps the next time we meet online, he may even play me something – I do hope so.