Playing a part in someone else taking a step towards surpassing their potential is an amazing buzz.
Why do I say that?
Well just about everyone needs help from somewhere to shoot them to the stars, whether it’s a teacher, a manager at work, a mate.
My working life began as a secondary school PE teacher. I ended up there mainly because my own PE teacher was amazing, pure inspiration. And so, I got into working with young people and helping them move on to the next stage of their lives.
Yes, I coached kids who went on to be professional footballers and compete at high levels in other sports but you know what my most wonderful achievement was? Working with a disabled boy once a week at lunchtime, helping him learn to swim. When he swam a width unaided I remember crying, he was crying, I was crying, everyone was crying. I saw how much it meant to him and that is what made it mean so much to me. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.
I spent seven years in teaching, then twenty years in financial services at various levels of senior management before four of us set up a management development company. Sounds really grand doesn’t it but it wasn’t, it was hard. We did some great work with some big corporations and also a huge amount of work in schools developing sixth form students in terms of leadership skills, decision making, communication, presentation skills, everything ‘world related’ the national curriculum missed and still does. It was amazing to see young people develop with a little direction, support and encouragement.
Wind forward fifteen years to my work with alterniq inspired growth as a coach to young talent.
At alterniq our mission is to “Discover and inspire talent, at any level.”
I could spend ages writing about coaching models and qualifications, psychometric testing, assessment centres to establish latent talent and it would bore you senseless.
All the above and much more we use as tools but none of it works without one single ingredient - passion.
So, what is passion?
Well to me it’s the excitement and thrill of helping someone realise where they can go in life is so much further than they realise at the moment. It’s a real feeling in my stomach at the end of a coaching session, group session, psychometric feedback session, workplace observation, when I can look in the mirror and say “Wow, that was just brilliant”. Not me who was brilliant but what happened was brilliant - and that was down to the person or people I was working with and what they did, maybe with a bit of help from me.
Finding an undiscovered talent who is, as an example, an introvert and doesn’t put themselves at the front of the queue but when given the opportunity to shine is amazing, is a privilege.
We don’t work with everyone at alterniq, we work with organisations who genuinely want to discover all the talent - yes all the talent - they have, develop it and retain those people to be the decision-makers of the future.
Companies are finally realising wasting huge sums of money on staff turnover is senseless and, well, no one can afford it now can they?
Is there a skill to it? Is there a way of doing it?
Yes, of course, there is but it’s not just about skills and knowledge and coaching models, it’s about the delight of discovering a hidden gem, the joy for that person and the joy for the organisation who didn’t realise what they were dealing with.
We do it well at alterniq, we’re straight, we’re honest, we’re good and we’re passionate.
I just love it!
Click here to hear Peter speak in an introduction to our senior coaches video.
By Peter Thorp, a senior coach at alterniq inspired growth.
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