In Part 1 of this series, I reported on how external coaches have shifted their practice, as time has moved on, on refining their model and refining their offer so that they're offering something unique and specialist. Absolutely, it might restrict their market, I think though there's an element that says it makes you a better coach because you're dealing with your strengths and your unique offerings. Building on this focus of being a better coach, I apply this notion into the internal coaching context and its practical application with a proposed blueprint.

If you recognize your strengths as a coach, if you know where you are at your best in a specific area/function, and If you’re aware of where your coaching produces substantially better results – it’s a strong platform, especially for an internal coach matching model.

As a coach I help my coachees, as a manager I help my team, in conversations I help my colleagues and in supervision I help my coaches do one thing above everything - achieve clarity. Above all else – a great coach I know, Simon North, says, ‘Clarity Wins’. I think that is the role of a manager. It's the role of a coach.

In a business where you get new people joining an organization, very early on they are expecting to be told what to do, expecting to be given their next task, or expecting to be given their next strategy – they are expecting the answers. People who are leading the business are expected to have all the answers.

It's an interesting parallel because in some industries, deregulation or lack of regulation at all enables people to make choices about what's good, what's bad. You would hope that the good remain and the bad gets sifted out. I think coaching's one of those things where the quality of coaching can have a knock on impact - that can have a lasting effect.

The internal coaching program I belong to has been running over a decade: it’s managed to ride the waves of change and keep its presence alive. The value of developing coaches as part of the organization was driven from a member of the leadership team with genuine enthusiasm and passion.

Given the nature of coaching, and its close links and historical alignment to therapy, I can understand why the need for supervision became a hot topic. In the early days it was very simple just to build on the model,

My style of management and coaching can best be described as non-directive. Over time my roles have evolved to become more strategic than tactical, more management than operational. Partly it was about always seeking consensus – usually by asking questions – rather than telling somebody how something could be better. Partly it was also because I didn’t