Coaching for Countryside Professionals

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Adrian is looking for people to participate in his Masters research - if you have been involved in any mentoring or coaching think about getting involved.

By Adrian Banford, The Environmentor

As a new in post countryside manager in 1984, I knew little of what was in store for me over the next 40 years. I did have people around me I could call upon, but you never told your boss everything, nor your colleagues all your concerns and hopes. I have come to realise that I needed help and support beyond that, throughout my career. I relied heavily on a few trusted individuals, and I couldn’t have achieved what I did, without them. Most of the help was in the form of a sounding board / critical friend, but also to help me to have faith in myself and occasionally give me a ‘wake-up’ call.

Adrian standing in front of a viaduct — (Adrian Banford)

Since effectively retiring I started wondering, who would I turn to if I was starting out now, how would I secure the time I need, with the sort of people I need, when I need it? I discovered the profession of coaching and that it was prevalent in other sectors, but not so much in Countryside work. My research led myself to joining a post graduate programme and I am beginning to see much more clearly how to support people through their career.

Coaching as an industry grew in the late 1990’s early 2000’s. ‘Executive coaching’, then ‘life style coaching’ were the first two sectors that boomed. There were initially few or no formal qualifications and practitioners were of variable standard. There has been a significant professionalisation since 2015, when the professional bodies started to gain traction.

Published benefits of coaching and a coaching culture:

Increased individual skill levels and assurance with, especially interpersonal, tasks.
Decreased levels of stress, absenteeism, even sickness
Increased reporting of team building and effectiveness of teams
Increased reporting of wellbeing indices and work life balance reporting
Reduced reporting of HR ‘issues’.

As part of my Masters in coaching and mentoring and I exploring how far coaching and mentoring formally and informally has penetrated into Countryside Management, both at the top and all the way down to those seeking their first paid job role. I am seeking those who have used a form of coaching to be a participant in my research topic. I am seeking to ascertain on an individual and an organisational level how coaching and a coaching culture can and does make individuals, teams and organisations more effective and impactful.

The outcome measuring of a ‘soft’ intervention is often hard to measure, so I am going to use a mix of structured and semi structured questionnaires, so I am seeking in the region of 20 people from all levels of the industry to participate. Lockdown has made us used to Zoom / Teams and such platforms, so we will ‘meet’ online, and it has been noted that the use of coaching has increased significantly as a result of such technology. Finally, I would seek to explore with a few select individuals how a coaching culture might be incorporated into an organisation as part of its operating procedure, staff development and HR function; one or two volunteers exploring organisational restructuring and especially rapid expansion would aid the research.

I would recommend to anyone to seek out professional coaches, to act as a person to go to, who is impartial, objective, confidential, trained and skilled in getting the best from you. Some organisation will support this cost, yet for an hour or so every month, the value for money I regained was immeasurable.

Should you wish to become involved in my research, please email me at s2108643@uni.cumbria.ac.uk