Coaching
Six things people
bring to a first session.
You don't have to arrive with the problem cleanly diagnosed — that's usually part of the work. But if you want to know what the sessions actually contain, here it is, area by area.
01
Interview preparation
The most common reason strong people stall at final stage isn't knowledge. It's that they're composing answers live, for the first time, while also being judged on them.
We build a small bank of examples from your real work — six or seven, no more — and learn to re-cut them for whatever gets asked, rather than hunting for a fresh story each time. Then we practise out loud, at interview pace, and cut everything that didn't earn its place.
What we spend time on
- The first fifteen seconds of an answer, which set whether anyone stays with you
- Endings — how to stop cleanly instead of trailing off into "so, yeah"
- Handling the question you hoped wouldn't come up, without visible panic
- The questions you ask them, which almost nobody prepares and everybody notices
- Panel and remote formats, where the usual conversational cues aren't available
02
Career direction
"What should I do next?" is rarely answered by more thinking. It's answered by narrowing — deliberately, with reasons you'd stand behind out loud.
These sessions are structured, and slightly uncomfortable. We separate what you're good at from what you want more of, name which constraints are genuinely fixed, and test two or three directions against how you'd actually spend an ordinary Tuesday in each.
What we spend time on
- Ruling options out on purpose, and writing down why
- Telling inherited expectations apart from your own
- Working out what evidence would change your mind — then how to go and get it cheaply
- The version of the decision that's reversible, so you can move before you're certain
03
How you describe your work
Most people describe themselves in job-title nouns and lose everything that made the work matter. The description gets shorter and vaguer every year.
We rebuild it from what actually happened — decisions you made, problems you owned, what was different afterwards — and turn a list of responsibilities into a handful of specific claims someone could check. Then we cut the jargon that only made sense inside your last organisation.
What we spend time on
- The opening line you use in interviews, applications and introductions
- The through-line across roles that look unrelated on paper
- Claims that survive a follow-up question, because they're true and you were there
- What to leave out — usually the hardest part
You write the words. I push until they're sharp. Text that isn't yours collapses the moment someone probes it.
04
Difficult conversations
There's usually one conversation you're avoiding, and avoiding it is costing more than having it would.
We prepare it the same way we'd prepare an interview: what you want to be true afterwards, the first two sentences, the likely pushback, and what you'll do if it goes badly. Then you say it out loud to me first, which is considerably cheaper than saying it to them first.
Commonly rehearsed
- Feedback that has been postponed so long it's now awkward
- Saying no upwards without turning it into a negotiation about your commitment
- Raising a workload or scope problem before it becomes a resignation
- Preparing for a compensation discussion — what you'll say, and when you'll stop talking
05
The first months of leading
The title arrives. The instructions don't. Suddenly the job is conversations you've never had, with people who used to be peers.
We work through the specific ones in front of you — first one-to-ones, expectations, the handover of work you're no longer supposed to be doing — and set up a way of finding out how it's landing that doesn't rely on people volunteering bad news.
What we spend time on
- What you'll say in the first one-to-one with each person, drafted and rehearsed
- What you're going to stop doing, now that doing it yourself is the failure mode
- Delegating something visible early, and living with how it's done differently
- The conversation you're currently avoiding — there's always one
06
Coming back after a break
Time away — caring, health, redundancy, study, or simply stopping — turns into a story people over-explain and under-sell.
We settle how you'll handle the gap in one plain sentence, rebuild a current description of what you can do, and get you match-fit for conversations again, because being out of practice is a real thing and it's fixable.
What we spend time on
- One honest sentence about the gap that closes the subject rather than opening it
- What's genuinely current in your skills, and what needs refreshing before you claim it
- Rebuilding conversational stamina — the first three practice runs are meant to be rough
- Sequencing applications so the ones you care about aren't the ones you practise on
Not sure which one you're in?
Describe the situation in a few lines. Working out which problem you're actually solving is the first thing I'd do anyway.