Category Archives: Professional Self-Coaching

Béatrice was a finance analyst, and by every measure that was supposed to matter. Her work was exceptional. Her numbers were immaculate, her forecasts the ones people trusted when it counted. Ask anyone whether she was good at her job and they’d say obviously — and go back to what they were doing. And year after year, the roles she was ready for went to other people. She did what she’d always done: worked harder, made the immaculate more immaculate. It made no difference at all — because she’d misunderstood the problem, and the misunderstanding was costing her the career she’d earned.

Anders had spent years helping other people solve problems, develop ideas and see possibilities they hadn’t seen before. But when it came to something he wanted to change in his own working life, he could spend hours thinking and still end up exactly where he started. Then something he said to a colleague made him question not the problem, but the way he was thinking about it. What followed is a story about self-coaching, the assumptions that can keep us stuck and the difference between thinking and thinking well.

Rahul was a research scientist, quietly used to not being heard. His judgement, over fifteen years, had been vindicated again and again — when he said a result wouldn’t hold, it didn’t. The trouble was the eventually. He’d raise a concern carefully, watch it slide off the conversation, and months later watch the problem arrive exactly as described — with no one recalling he’d named it first. He kept a folder of it, not to prove anything, but because he couldn’t make sense of it. I raised it. I explained it. What was missing? The answer wasn’t in the folder. It was in three stories he’d never told — and they were what finally got him into the room where the decisions were made.

Nazanin was one of the best analysts her company had. Her work was everywhere — the quarterly strategy, the big product decision, all built on her numbers. When something important was being decided, her data was in the room. She was not. She’d sit at her desk and think the thought that had become familiar over four years: I know more about this than anyone in that room. Why am I never asked what I think? The answer, when it came, wasn’t about her work at all — it was about a question she’d never been asked, and had never given anyone reason to ask.

Tomasz was the person who usually knew — the engineer who understood the system more deeply than anyone, where it was fragile, what would break. In meetings, he said almost nothing. He’d watch a decision move toward a choice he knew was wrong, feel the words build up, and not say them — because to speak, he’d have to cut across someone, and there was never a clean gap. He’d fixed more bad decisions at his desk, after the fact, than he’d ever prevented in the room. Then he watched a quiet colleague do the one thing he never could — and understood how a person like him ends up at the table where the decisions are made, instead of at the desk where they get fixed afterwards.

Imani’s organisation took professional development seriously. There were programmes, workshops, resources and regular development conversations. But when her manager asked what she wanted to work on, Imani’s answers — leadership, confidence, strategic thinking — didn’t tell her very much about what she actually needed. Then a moment in a meeting prompted a different question: What is my working life trying to teach me? What followed is a story about self-coaching, professional development and what changes when we become active participants in directing our own learning.

Sam was a UX researcher, and very good at finding out what was actually true. His research was a direct line to how the product really worked — exactly what the strategy meetings needed. In practice, he watched the glaze: the polite nods, the eyes going unfocused, the “thanks, Sam, really useful,” and the room deciding what it had been going to decide anyway. He’d started to wonder if he was just bad at presenting. Then he watched a colleague present the same kind of finding — and the room leaned in.

Brendan was thirty-three, a research scientist, and had just been made responsible for something he’d never done: partnerships, licensing, rooms full of people from the business side. He’d been to three events. At each one he’d explained his work with total accuracy and watched faces politely close. So he found a coach — a good one, expensive, booked solid for three months. She rang him anyway — she had no space for him, and asked what the problem was regardless — and told him what she would actually do in those sessions. He put the phone down and went to find a notebook.