Coaching for people in audio-visual

Somewhere to think, with someone who knows the industry.

Someone who doesn’t need the industry explained

In AV it can be hard to find anyone to think out loud with who understands the work and has no stake in what you decide. Colleagues are in it with you. Clients and suppliers want something from you. Family can hear that it was a hard week, but not why a slipped programme or a lost bid lands the way it does.

I’ve worked in this industry as the end-user running the estate, as the client commissioning consultants and integrators, and as the director selling managed services. That doesn’t make me the expert on your situation. You are. It means we can get to the point quickly.

What this coaching is for

Here are some of the situations it’s for. Yours may be one of them, several, or something else entirely.

You were the best engineer in the building. Now you manage them.

If you got where you are by being a very good engineer, the job may have changed underneath you. The things that made you valuable, knowing the answer and fixing it yourself, can start to get in the way when the job is helping other people find the answer. There can be a pull back to the rack, and a quiet worry about being found out. Coaching is a place to work out what the role asks of you now, and what you can let go of.

You’re who they call when the screen goes black.

If you run AV for an organisation, you may be holding a whole estate together with a team smaller than the job. Every failure is visible, and success mostly looks like nothing happening. You can become the person everyone relies on, with nobody to rely on yourself. Coaching won’t fix the rooms. It’s a place to decide how you want to do the job, what to protect, and what to stop absorbing.

The forecast is due on Friday.

Selling AV is changing. More buyers want service and outcomes rather than equipment, bids can take longer, and the team may have been hired for a different kind of sale. If you lead sales, you answer upwards for the number, downwards for the team and outwards to the client, sometimes all in the same afternoon. Coaching is somewhere to think about how you want to lead through that, with someone who has led an AV sales team through a similar shift.

Brought in after the design was finished. Again.

If you’re a consultant, you may be arriving after decisions that matter have already been made, and then justifying a fee against a design-and-build quote. Holding a professional view under that pressure, without becoming defensive or quietly giving ground, is hard to do alone. Coaching is somewhere to get clear about where you stand, how you want to say it, and what it’s costing you to keep saying it.

Every room works. Nobody has asked what the estate is for.

If you head up AV, keeping rooms running is one job. Deciding what the estate should become is another: what users actually need, what your team can realistically sustain, and how to make that case to estates, IT and finance in their terms. It’s the work that makes an AV manager hard to replace, and it may not be work anyone has shown you how to do. Coaching won’t write the strategy for you. It’s somewhere to find your own footing in it.

Eighteen months on the bid. One email saying no.

For integrators and consultants, long bids are part of the job, and so is losing them. What’s harder to talk about is what happens afterwards: the second-guessing, the team that needs picking up, the next pitch on Thursday regardless. The same goes for when a business changes hands and roles shift under people who didn’t choose it. Coaching is a place to take in a loss properly, learn from it without turning it into a verdict on yourself, and go again on your own terms.

How the coaching works

This is therapeutic coaching. It starts from the person in the role rather than from the role alone. Most of the time goes on looking forward: what you want, what you’re already good at, and what’s getting in the way. I’ll ask questions more than I’ll give answers, say what I notice, and challenge you where it seems useful.

Sometimes what’s in the way runs deeper than the job. A decision that keeps being circled is rarely only about the decision. My counselling training is what lets us go there when it matters, and come back, rather than steering round it. The work stays coaching. If counselling would be the better piece of work, we’d talk about that openly.

It asks for a certain amount of ballast: being willing to be challenged, to try things between sessions, and to look at yourself fairly honestly. There’s a fuller account on the coaching page, including who it isn’t for.

If your organisation is paying

Coaching can be arranged through your employer. If it is, we’ll agree in writing at the outset what the coaching is for, what it covers, and what gets reported back and what doesn’t. Usually that means progress against agreed aims, never what was said in sessions. Nothing from coaching feeds into selection, performance or restructuring decisions.

If you’re a manager or HR lead thinking about coaching for someone in your team, the first conversation can be with you.

Where I’ve worked in AV

Before practising as a coach and counsellor, I spent thirty years leading technology teams in large organisations. At Google I managed global AV and video-conferencing infrastructure and led an in-house coaching programme, and I’ve worked at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase. I’ve led an AV team in higher education, and I’ve been Sales and Marketing Director at an AV software and managed-service provider, taking the team from mid-market to enterprise.

I hold a Diploma in Advanced Executive Coaching from the Academy of Executive Coaching, and I’m a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, whose Ethical Framework covers coaching as well as therapy. There’s more on the about page.

Practicalities

I work online across the UK and in person in London, on Mondays and Tuesdays between 7am and 7pm. Sessions are fifty minutes, and coaching usually works well as a series over a few months, though we’ll shape that to your situation.

Privately booked sessions are £70 for fifty minutes, paid after each session. Coaching arranged through an employer is quoted separately, since the shape of the work and what it involves differ. I aim to reply to enquiries within one working day.

The first conversation is free. About twenty minutes, no obligation, and nothing is booked or paid for until after we’ve spoken.

Arrange a free first conversation

If you’re in crisis or need urgent help, coaching isn’t the fastest route. You can call the Samaritans free on 116 123 at any time, or contact your GP or NHS 111.