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Several people have asked me recently how to become a coach. Some want to set up a coaching businesses. Others want to take a coaching approach to leadership and management, even to being a friend or parent. Coaching is something I very much encourage - and I'm lucky to work at a university, UAL , that runs an internal coaching programme. But it can seem a leap. So how do you go about it? The first time I was asked this, my answer was a bit rambling. I’ve now had a chance to give it a bit more thought - so I am posting what I should have said below. I'm thinking of tidying it up and posting it on my main site (especially now I have some new photos from the brilliant and appropriately named Jane Looker ).     How did I get into coaching? I started my career in the creative industries. I went into higher education to help others have similarly rewarding experiences and avoid some of the mistakes I'd made myself. I made plenty of mistakes as an academic too. I still remember the first lecture I gave, and it was awful: I'd written out a whole script. It wasn't death by PowerPoint. It was worse.  I didn't stay that bad for long, which was good news for the students I was teaching and the leaders and entrepreneurs I was soon training. But I was still g iving people answers. They were answers that worked for me - but they didn't necessarily work for anyone else. I realised this most acutely when working with people in different contexts like Ghana and Jordan. Over time, I started to realise that my role wasn't to give answers. It was to create the conditions in which people could find answers for themselves. At some point, I realised I was coaching - and set out to find out more about it. Becoming a coach Unusually, I started off not with individual coaching but with team coaching. I am very grateful to Alison Fletcher and Elinor Vettraino at Akatemia for introducing me to Finland’s pioneering 'team academy' approach to enterprise education. I ended up visiting Tampere and Jyvaskyla to see team coaching in situ. I gave myself concussion in the process, but that’s another story. I was hooked. Suddenly I had a very different perspective on the leadership and management experience I had as a music manager, magazine editor and Associate Dean.  This background is by no means typical. Most coaching is still 1:1, although team coaching is growing fast. And most coaches come from the corporate world, typically from HR. But the good news is that coaching - unlike mentoring - is largely sector-agnostic. The client is the one who should have the domain expertise. The coach's job is to help work out what to do with it.   Does coaching work for everyone? So far, the results I have seen have been spectacular. I have experienced this as a client: I am lucky enough to have been coached by  Jonathan Passmore , and I found the experience transformative. ​​ I'm happy to say I think I've had a positive impact on the people I've coached too. One - an external client, not a colleague at my university - had spent a decade and a half in an organisation he despised - without applying for anything else. After three sessions, he was landing interviews for new jobs. The funny thing is that he hasn't actually moved jobs: he has decided he is, in fact, happy where he is. At first, I felt that we'd failed . But I saw him again recently and saw that, by dipping his toe in a few alternative work environments, he's reframed his current role and was now content in it. From someone who'd previously given his role a 2/10, this was a win. ​​ Another client, again external, was regularly working until after midnight. Within a couple of months, she had regained work-life balance - and overcome a fear of public speaking into the bargain.  ​ However, i t's worth saying that coaching tends not to work so well if clients aren't willing to change or if client and coach are poorly matched.​ I'd advise you to have a chat with a few coaches before committing to working with anyone. You need to click. It's also important to distinguish coaching from mentoring, which tends to be more master/apprentice (even if the line can be a bit blurred: I've written a whole other post about this here ) . I'm not here to argue that one is better than the other, but to show up in a coaching relationship expecting mentoring - or vice versa - is a recipe for disappointment. ​ ​​ Neither is coaching the same as counselling or therapy. It's vitally important that mental health issues are referred to an appropriate professional.  ​​​​​​​​ Sounds great. Where do I start? As a coach, I often find myself encouraging clients to take a first step. Actually taking a step, even a small one, is far more productive than the bigger steps you only dream about. Even if it turns out to be a step in the wrong direction, at least you know. You can try a slightly different path. The poet and consultant (yes, that's a thing) David Whyte has a brilliant poem on this, called 'Start Close In'. (I recommend hearing him read it aloud ). It's all about not getting stuck in imagining the second or third steps of a journey but, instead, taking that first step out of your comfort zone. Working Identity  by Herminia Ibarra  covers a similar subject from a different perspective. Rather than trying to find your 'true self' through endless reflection, understand that we all have multiple possible selves - and we discover them through action. The key argument is that we shouldn't wait for knowledge before taking action. Action comes first. Action - 'starting close in' - is the way to start coaching too. For me, it was a visit to Mondragon University in Bilbao that started my interest. For you, it might be something very different. My next step was to find out a bit more through books (among them, Radical Candour  by Kim Scott , Challenging Coaching  by John Blakey and Ian Day , Coaching for Performance  by John Whitmore  and Leadership Team Coaching  by Peter Hawkins). Then I did a couple of qualifications. I have a PG Cert in executive coaching from the Institute of Leadership and Management (thanks Angie Turner and Virginia Raymond of the British School of Coaching ). Unless something goes very wrong, I’m also about to get a PG Cert in team coaching from Aston University. It might even be, as at my university, that there's an internal programme at your organisation you can join. I also attended various CPD sessions through the  Association for Coaching .​​​​​​ It's also worth looking at the EMCC and the ICF . Do I think I'm some kind of coaching guru? Yes. I have it all figured out. Listen to no-one else. Seriously, part of the reason I wanted to write this post is that I am very much aware I don't come from a typical coaching background. But I also know I didn't get to spend a decade in the music industry because of any great innate talent on my part: it was a combination of learning and luck. This is also true of my time in higher education: I still wince to recall that first, heavily scripted lecture. Well, the same goes for coaching. Your route in will be unique to you but if I can do it then you can too. The main thing is to take that first step. Want to find out more about coaching and how it might help you? Book a free call here .

The range of coaching offers out there can be confusing, even if you avoid a life coach as obviously dodgy as Jeremy in the Peep Show episode ‘Business Secrets of the Pharaohs’ . Adding mentoring to the mix makes it more confusing still.   While coaches and mentors share similar objectives, however, they typically reach that destination by different routes. How, then, can we think about coaching vs mentoring? Team Miyagi You’ll find plenty of articles explaining the difference between coaching and mentoring, but this is probably the only one that begins by asking you to think back to the 1984 film The Karate Kid .   Specifically, think about the character of Mr Miyagi, played by Pat Morita. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll remember that Mr Miyagi teaches karate to Daniel LaRusso, played by Ralph Macchio. He does so in what at first seems an eccentric and even punitive way, making Daniel wax his car and paint his fence . Only when Daniel is ready to quit does Mr Miyagi reveal that the chores were in fact a way to introduce him to the foundations of martial arts. Team Socrates Now shift from fictional Los Angeles to real-life Athens. And turn the clock back from 1984AD to 470-399 BC. Think, not of Mr Miyagi, but of Socrates, the founder of Western philosophy.   Perhaps the most important aspect of Socrates’ philosophy is his commitment to questions . These questions had different functions, including clarification (what exactly do you mean?), evidence (how do you know?) and shifting perspectives (what alternative viewpoints might there be?). He would even question the question itself (why do you think I asked this question?).   Coaching vs mentoring? Mentors tend to offer advice and pass on knowledge, often based on what has worked for them in the past.   Mr Miyagi is a mentor. He solves Daniel’s problems for him: think of the moment, early in the film, when he actually rescues Daniel from bullies. Even when he teaches Daniel to fight for himself, he does so as a master to an apprentice. Coaches, by contrast, tend to support clients to solve their own problems, often through asking questions. The relationship is less hierarchical than that between mentor and mentee: knowledge is not passed on but co-created. Socrates was a coach. He sought to raise self-awareness through powerful questions.   While mentors tend to be instructive , coaches are inquisitive . We could say that mentoring is more like learning from a slide presentation, while coaching is more about learning through reflection. Mentoring Coaching Instructive Inquisitive Solve a client’s problems for them by providing answers Support clients to solve their own problems by asking questions Knowledge is passed on from master to apprentice Knowledge is co-created through less hierarchical relationship For those in junior roles or senior colleagues making a significant shift For those in senior roles looking to achieve personal or professional growth Mr Miyage Socrates The coaching continuum This table, of course, is a simplification. There’s a reason the terms ‘coaching’ and ‘mentoring’ are sometimes used interchangeably: in reality, the line between them is far from impermeable. A coach might well veer into mentor territory – or vice versa – even within a single session.   Rather than thinking of coaching and mentoring as completely different, then, it may be more useful, as coach and author Myles Downey  has suggested, to think in terms of a spectrum.   While I have a personal preference for coaching, I am in a mentor role too and believe it can be every bit as valuable. My qualification (from the Institute Leadership and Management: even better than Jeremy’s certificate in Peep Show ) is in coaching and  mentoring. We are talking about a difference in emphasis, not a radical divide. So... do I need a mentor or a coach? In general, the right choice for you will depend on your role and career stage.   Broadly speaking, mentorship suits those in relatively junior roles. It can also suit more senior colleagues making a significant shift: for instance into a new sector or new geographical location. T he mentor - someone who has been there, done it, and got the T-shirt - can provide not only experience but also access to networks.   A downside of mentoring, however, is that it can create dependency. For this reason, those already in more senior roles are likely to prefer coaching. Coaching is likely to be particularly appealing to those seeking some kind of personal or professional growth – to develop their emotional intelligence, for instance, or overcome imposter syndrome.   One other consideration: mentors, in general, have more experience in a given industry sector. Coaches, by contrast, tend to have experiences in being coaches . What they are bringing is a methodology. OK, I’ve decided. What next? If you want to work with a coach, then the Association for Coaching , the International Coaching Federation and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council are good places to start.   As the name suggests, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council covers mentoring too. You can also find a mentor through more informal channels. The first step is simply to ask. Whether you choose coaching or mentoring, the takeaway is this: make sure you're both expecting to be on the same place on the Socrates-Miyage spectrum. Good luck. Think creative leadership coaching might be for you? Book a free call here .

As well as working independently as a consultant and executive coach, I am also an academic. From August, I will be Professor of Innovation and the Creative Economy at University of the Arts London , where I already work as Associate Dean of Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise. So… what is the difference between creativity and innovation? And what does any of this have to do with coaching?     What is innovation?   Innovation is a concept so widely championed that it might seem almost meaningless. The key point for me is that innovation is not only about new technologies. Instead, it refers to the creation of any new product, service or business model. It is often pointed out that innovation is distinct from invention, a key point in the difference between creativity and innovation. Creativity is the generation of novel ideas, while innovation is persuading others to adopt those ideas. To quote Jan van Den Ende in Innovation management , innovation involves not just developing ideas (stage one in the image above) but also selecting and implementing them too (stages two and three... although I'm not sure the reality is quite this linear.)   To understand the distinction between creativity and innovation, consider the fact that the person who invented the hoover was not W. H. Hoover: it was a department store janitor named J. Murray Spangler. The person who invented the sewing machine was not Isaac Singer, but a Boston resident called Elias Howe. And the company that came up the idea of renting out homes via a website was not Airbnb but Vacation Rentals by Owner. Remember them? Me neither. To understand the distinction between creativity and innovation, then, we need to abandon the idea that, if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. The benefits from innovation often go not to the creator or inventor but those best able to manage the associated risks and rewards.   That said, I don’t see creativity as only concerned with generating ideas: the ‘front end’ of innovation. My point is not only that the three-stage model pictured above is a little messier in reality. It is also that creativity, to me, is required throughout the innovation process. Think, for instance, of the role of so-called 'design thinking' in selecting ideas or of the role of advertising and the media in driving adoption. The creative economy, then, is a key driver not just of the initial idea development stage but of the whole innovation process.     What is the creative economy?   The concept of the creative industries emerged in the late 1990s, more or less in parallel with the rise of knowledge work and the post-industrial economy. The idea, in a nutshell, was to make an argument for creativity framed in terms of jobs, urban regeneration and economic growth. Today, the UK’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) identifies nine creative industries sub-sectors : advertising and marketing; architecture; craft; design; film, TV, video, radio and photography; IT, software and computer services; publishing; museums, galleries and libraries; music, performing arts and visual arts.   This creative industries concept has been globally influential, perhaps because the UK creative industries are said to generate £108 billion a year, employ over 2.3 million people and are growing at more than 1.5 times the rate of the wider economy .   It is now recognised, however, that this £108 billion is unevenly distributed both between industries (it will surprise no-one that there is more money in IT, software and computer services than in crafts) and within industries (it is claimed, for instance, that 90% of music streams go to the top 1% of artists ). This is to say nothing of the fact that the importance of the creative industries cannot be understood in only financial terms. Whether we see it in opera or in soap opera, most of us would recognise that the creative industries have intrinsic as well as instrumental value. Neither Vincent Van Gogh nor Nick Drake, for instance, achieved much commercial success during their lifetimes. This doesn’t mean they weren’t any good. (We can think of them as the artistic equivalents of J. Murray Spangler: because they were better at generating ideas than at selecting and implementing them.)   It is also now known that the categorisation of sub-sectors as ‘creative’ in that creative industries framework was somewhat ad hoc . The current government admits in its Creative industries sector vision   that  there are overlaps between the creative industries and both the digital sector and the cultural sector. The reality, in any case, is that much – perhaps most – creative work occurs outside the nine sub-sectors listed above. Think, for instance, of a graphic designer working for a bank. The issue, at root, is that the creative industries concept is rooted in creative outputs . When we consider creative inputs , however, it is clear that designers, for instance, work far beyond a specific vertical: they work right across the whole economy. The same goes f or IT, software and computer services.   For this reason, some prefer to talk of the creative economy . The creative economy concept is not perfect: it focuses only on economic value, for instance. It does, however, capture the contribution of creativity to the whole economy – what economics call positive spillover – rather than only the nine sub-sectors recognised by DCMS.     What does innovation in the creative economy look like in practice?   What innovation in the creative economy looks like depends on scale. I wrote a whole book, for instance, on the musician Robert Wyatt. Wyatt might not be the first person that comes in mind when we think of innovation. Louth is a long way from Silicon Valley. A lot of Different every time , however, concerns the ways in which Wyatt – in collaboration with Alfreda Benge, his manager, lyricist, cover artist and wife – came up with both a new musical identity and a new business model after paraplegia left him unable to play the drums or to perform live. More recently, I wrote a book about innovation in the creative economy at a very different scale: that of a whole technology. Distributed creativity , written years before Christie’s sold a non-fungible token (NFT) representing a work of visual art for $69 million , examined the impact of blockchain and what are now called web3 technologies on various parts of the creative economy, from music and art to gaming. I am less interested in the technology itself than in who wins and who loses from its implementation. It's the vacuum cleaner a century on.   I am currently writing a book examining innovation in the creative economy at a scale somewhere in between the individual and the systemic. It is about the ways in which creative practices, from LEGO Serious Play to improv comedy, have encouraged innovation in organisations well beyond the creative industries. It is this sort of scale, that of the organisation or cluster, that I am most interested in as a coach.     What does any of this have to do with coaching?   While my work as a coach is distinct from my work as an academic, it isn’t easy to separate them completely. I first became interested in team coaching as an approach to enterprise education, linked to my role as a non-executive director of Enterprise Educators UK . I have coached entrepreneurial students and graduates and offered coaching as part of grant-funded business support projects. I’m also a member of the internal coaching pool. And I see it as a strength that my coaching is evidence-based and research-informed.   For coaches who focus on improving individual performance in the corporate sector, the idea that coaching has a connection to creativity and innovation might come as a surprise. Yet there is a growing interest among coaches in both creative methods – see, for instance, the Association for Coaching’s recent Creative Coaching Festival –  and in innovation coaching. Strategyzer, for instance, have a team of innovation coaches whose job is to help teams craft hypotheses, design experiments and adapt business models in response . They are not offering executive coaching for leaders. Instead, they are helping teams develop ideas; articulate and test their key assumptions through sprints; and adapt repeatedly until they have an evidence-based value proposition and associated business model. In other words, they are helping their clients to move more quickly and cleanly through the idea development and selection phases of the innovation process through the sort of build-measure-learn loop popularised by Eric Ries in The lean startup . To be clear, I have nothing to do with Strategyzer. But that's more or less what I try to do too.     Interested in an evidence-based approach to fostering innovation in your organisation? Book a free call here .