Services Beyond Self
Beyond my paid-for services, I’m involved in projects that nurture my ‘sweet spot’: learning, connecting and respectful collaboration to create innovative solutions that support others with loving kindness. Where this involves a leadership position, my role is the ‘servant leader’, setting direction and supporting others to deliver.
Poetry For Coaching
Ross leads the Creative Coaching Collective. He is the Editor of Poetry for Coaching, Transformation Through Verse (November 2024): www.poetryforcoaching.org
Sharing poetry in my coaching sessions is something I’ve done spontaneously since I first became a coach. In 2018, I started writing poetry and noticed inspiring poems shared on social media by other coaches, always with a story about the poem. It struck me that these were too good to be allowed to disappear into cyberspace, so I started a project to collect them and make them available as a resource for the coaching profession. This turned into a book project. In 2024, Poetry for Coaching – Transformation Through Verse was self-published by The Creative Coaching Collective, comprising myself and 6 co-editors. The anthology comprises 111 poems, each with a story behind the poem, written by 41 coach poets from around the world. It is curated into 6 chapters, which are the stuff of coaching: Connection, Love, Acceptance, Forgiveness, Resilience and Life.
Cancer Coaching Community
Ross leads the Cancer Coaching Community. This is an online learning community for anyone interested in learning more about how coaching can support those affected by cancer:
Patients/Survivors,
Loved ones,
Carers and
Clinicians.
I’ve always been drawn to coaching my clients’ shadow side, which is where I believe the greatest learning and healing is to be found. Cancer casts a big shadow, so it felt natural to respond to an invitation for UK coaches to get together and explore how we could support those affected by cancer. We became the Cancer Coaching Community in 2017 with a vision to be the advocacy group for cancer coaching in the UK. For various reasons, we realised this was unworkable, and the committee members returned to their previous roles within the cancer support ecosystem. This left me as the last person still involved. I felt there was too much of value that we had created around what cancer coaching was and how it could be provided to let it go to waste. I assumed the leadership and relaunched the Cancer Coaching Community in 2019 as an online learning community for anyone interested in learning more about how coaching can support those affected by cancer.
Salisbury Coaching Circle
Ross leads Salisbury Coaching Circle and NLP Group, which is sponsored by the UK Chapter of the International Coaching Federation.
On starting my coaching diploma in 2014, one of the first things I did was look for a local coaching group where I could learn from other, more experienced coaches and find community. To my surprise, there was no such group in my city, so I decided to start one. I joined the UK Chapter of the International Coaching Federation, and I’ve been running monthly meetings ever since. We meet on the last Thursday of each month (except July, August, and December), from 19:00 to 21:00 hours. Our early meetings were in the skittle alley of a local pub! We migrated to the Tesco supermarket community room, and since the Covid pandemic, we meet on Zoom. During International Coaching Week each Spring from 2016-2022, I ran a full programme of events for 4-5 days initially in person, then on Zoom, and finally as a hybrid: in person and simultaneously on Zoom. My favourite memory is leading an in-person session in Salisbury with participants joining on Zoom simultaneously from India and Siberia – the global village in action! For further information, please contact me directly or join our Facebook group.
Dorset Business Mentors
My second career began by pure serendipity when I volunteered as a business mentor with Dorset Business Mentors in 2010. I loved working with business owners and start-ups, and soon found myself working on 9 different mentoring schemes and initiatives. This led to a new vocation, and I founded Business Mentoring Services Ltd in late 2011.
WaterAid
An opportunity for volunteer coaching with Water Aid came my way in 2017. This is a wonderful way to engage with Water Aid staff working in some of the most challenging environments on earth, bringing clean water and sanitation to people affected by conflict and climate change. The issues are typically about leadership, project management and career development, usually requiring a blend of coaching and mentoring. This is a fulfilling way to draw on my military engineering knowledge and project management skills for the benefit of Water Aid staff.
Swindon and Wiltshire Community Foundation
Transition Transformers is proud to support the Wiltshire and Swindon Community Foundation Wiltshire & Swindon Community Foundation
When I started my business in 2011, I asked myself 2 questions: what was my exit plan, and how was I going to support my local community? The answer to the first question was intuitively obvious to me: I served 26 years in the Army so I would serve 26 years in business. The second question was much harder: there were so many worthy causes in Salisbury and Wiltshire that I didn’t know how to choose. By pure serendipity, I found myself sitting next to one of the philanthropy team from the Swindon and Wiltshire Community Foundation at a business networking lunch. They explained how they triage community needs across the whole of Swindon and Wiltshire and allocate funds based on need. This solved the problem for me and I signed up to create an endowment fund. Each year I give a percentage of my earnings to this fund, which is combined with all the other funds to earn the greatest possible returns. These earnings are then used to fund projects and support individuals in need across the county. The fund is growing all the time and able to distribute ever greater grants. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that my fund will be contributing to the good of my community long after my time is up. There are other community foundations across the UK. For further information, please visit Wiltshire & Swindon Community Foundation
The Architecture of Transformation
While our work together may begin with a single challenge, true evolution is multi-dimensional. My practice is built upon four core pillars of excellence, each designed to provide the structural integrity required for profound personal and professional change.
Whether you are developing your business and leadership, navigating a career shift, improving your health and wellbeing, or developing as a coach, there is a path engineered for your specific transition.
Published Thought Leadership
The Institute of Directors’ publishers approached me to contribute a chapter on Coaching and Mentoring for Business Growth to their annual publication, The Growing Business Handbook. The following year, they asked me to write about whatever I wanted, so I decided to write about leadership, drawing on my own experience as a leader (and follower) in the British Army and my research into leadership and management in business. This evolved into 2 chapters: one on Leadership for Performance, the other on Authentic Leadership for Growth. I am pleased to share these 3 chapters as a useful resource for business owners, leaders, coaches and mentors.