If You Only Had Time: What You’d Learn from an Executive Coach

By Duncan Aldred

This book isn’t about what you produce for your boss or your client, it’s about how you pilot yourself through your career, pick your way through the challenges that come your way and squeeze the most out of the chances you get to learn and develop.
Spending time (and money) with the right executive coach could be the best investment you’d ever make. Maybe that doesn’t fit into your programme today. But if you could be sitting with your coach right now, here’s what you’d be likely to learn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781398406759

Duncan Aldred

Duncan Aldred trained as an executive coach with Meyler Campbell and works as a coach, based mainly in London. In his life before coaching, Duncan was a commercial lawyer specialising in fraud- and finance-related disputes. He enjoyed the strategy, teamwork and urgency of litigating under pressure and was privileged to see different working styles up close, from Ferrari’s F1 team to banking’s Fred Goodwin and many others in between. For over 30 years, Duncan was a partner in a City law firm in London and, for part of that time, he held a management role. He first had his own coach over 20 years ago and was struck then by the unique benefits coaching could bring. Duncan’s website is at www.duncanaldred.com.

Book preview

About the Author

Duncan Aldred trained as an executive coach with Meyler Campbell and works as a coach, based mainly in London.

In his life before coaching, Duncan was a commercial lawyer specialising in fraud and finance-related disputes. He enjoyed the strategy, teamwork and urgency of litigating under pressure and was privileged to see different working styles up close, from Ferrari’s F1 team to banking’s Fred Goodwin and many others in between.

For over 30 years, Duncan was a partner in a City law firm in London and, for part of that time, he held a management role. He first had his own coach over 20 years ago and was struck then by the unique benefits coaching could bring.

Duncan’s website is at www.duncanaldred.com.

Dedication

To Mary A, Roger T, James B-H and Ann O, who took the trouble to try to teach me.

Copyright Information ©

Duncan Aldred (2021)

The right of Duncan Aldred to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528979856 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398406742 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398406759 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

Work doesn’t have to mean drudgery and stress. I’m indebted to those wonderful colleagues and clients who showed me this was possible, holding their heads above the fray and keeping a sense of humour. Thank you, too, to my coaching friends, Ann (surely, there’s no better coach), Claudia, Emilio and Simon (they must come joint second). Simon has encouraged me more than he’d know. And thank you to Anne (with an e) who made my website possible and helped me to set up in the business of coaching.

Spending time and money with the right executive coach could be the best investment you’d ever make. Here’s what you’d be likely to learn.

Introduction

The Purpose of This Book

My mission is to help you recognise and rise to the challenges that come with working and progressing in an organisation.

To enjoy success in your career, you’ll need a level of technical knowledge and skill and a degree of aptitude. Without those ingredients, you’ll struggle to get the job done or to see it through. But unless you’ve chosen an unusual solo path, you’ll need a further, vital ingredient.

This isn’t about what you produce for your boss or your client, it’s about how you pilot yourself through your career, pick your way through the challenges that come your way, and squeeze the most out of the chances you get to learn and develop.

This book shares with you what you’d be likely to hear if you had an executive coach on hand to help guide you through a number of typical challenges. Spending time (and money) with the right coach could be the wisest investment you’d ever make, but let’s imagine that doesn’t fit into your programme just now.

How the Book Works

In Part 1, I describe how a typical executive coach goes about the job of coaching.

Part 2 is about the groundwork you need to do to make an honest, objective assessment of yourself. If you were learning to play chess, you’d start by finding out what each piece could and couldn’t do. Your task in getting to understand yourself is along the same lines, but with one very big difference. The subject you’re studying is massively more interesting: your abilities aren’t set in stone. You can learn, adapt, change and develop, so long as you take control and decide that’s what you’re going to do.

In Part 3, I run through twelve challenges you’re most likely to face as you progress through your career. I’ve selected these from my experience as a coach and from my years of managing and team working in a law firm in London.

At the end of Part 2, and following each of the topics in Part 3, I suggest Practical Steps, points for action, which might emerge from a typical coaching programme.

Throughout the book, I’ll mention other books you might read if you have the time.

Part 4 describes techniques you might use for tackling challenges, whether that’s a challenge from my list of twelve or something else. Different devices work for different people and different questions, and different approaches will work for you, yourself, from time to time, depending on your mood.

I’m a strong believer in coaching and I have written this book to pass on some of the benefits that would come from working with a coach, if you had the opportunity to do that. But no book could hope to give you all that time with the right coach might bring.

Part 1: What