Episode #5: James Bianco - Beware Your Simple Stories About Coaching Success
James Bianco is a leadership and career coach and the founder of 16 Degrees Coaching. He spent 11 years working for the UK Department for International Development, working with ministers and introducing the Lean Start-Up methodology across DFID’s development programmes. Then, a desire to really see the positive impact of his work led him to discover coaching. He hasn’t looked back, clocking up over 2,000 hours of coaching in the first four years of his practice, including running career change webinars for thousands of people.
In this episode, we talk about:
How learning the craft of coaching works and how ‘trying hard’ to become a great coach in fact is not the way to become a great coach.
The power of the stories we have about our success: how the simple story he had about successful coaches – that they work only on recommendation – at first empowered him to create a thriving business… and then made him doubt himself.
What he learnt from running coaching calls for over 100 people at a time for career-change experts Careershifters.
Networking: how James used his network to create opportunities, recommendations and referrals, and the importance of dispelling the myths we have about our networks.
And listen out for the beautiful - and surprising - answer James gives when I ask him how he filled all the time he had when he left his civil service role to coach full time.
For more information about James, visit his website: https://www.16degreescoaching.co.uk/ or find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bianco/
For information about Robbie’s wider work and writing, visit www.robbieswalecoaching.com.
Music by My Good Man William: listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KmeQUcTbeE31uFynHQLQg
Things and people we mentioned (that you might be interested in):
~10: The Grameen Bank: http://www.grameen.com/introduction/
~10: Overseas Development Institute Fellowship Programme: https://www.odi.org/odi-fellowship-scheme
~13: Marianne Craig: https://www.coachlifeandcareer.com/
~18: Phil Bolton – Read about Phil here: http://phil-bolton.com/ or get to know him by listening to my interview with him in Episode #2: https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/episode-2-phil-bolton-from-forensic-accountant-to-the-go-to-career-coach-in-london-and-on-to-work-with-ceos-mds-and-founders
~18: The Coaching School: http://www.thecoachingschool.co.uk/
~22: Jim Dethmer: https://conscious.is/team/jim-dethmer
~32: International Coach Federation (ICF) Competencies: https://coachfederation.org/core-competencies
~38: Oxford Brooks Certification as a Skills and Performance Coach: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/coaching-and-mentoring-practice/
~67: Jennifer Garvey Berger: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-garvey-berger-7b4a264 and her book: Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unlocking-Leadership-Mindtraps-Thrive-Complexity/dp/1503609014
~72: Omidyar Network: https://www.omidyar.com/
~72: Luminate: https://www.omidyargroup.com/pov/organizations/luminate/
~74: Careershifters: http://www.careershifters.org/
~75: The Careershifters articles Robbie most regularly shares with clients: https://www.careershifters.org/expert-advice/the-lean-career-change-how-to-reduce-the-risk-and-increase-the-speed-of-your-shift and https://www.careershifters.org/expert-advice/struggling-to-find-your-ideal-work-why-looking-for-your-career-umbrella-will-get-you
~96: The Prosperous Coach by Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler: https://richlitvin.com/the-prosperous-coach/
~104: OCHA: https://www.unocha.org/
~104: Social Tech Trust: https://socialtechtrust.org/
FULL BIOGRAPHY FROM JAMES
James' has had a varied career but engaging with people has always been at the centre of it. He has run a Students Union, worked alongside Professor Yunus at the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, set up a Social Enterprise employing homeless people and spent over eleven years working in international development, helping develop programmes and teams in countries that include Ghana, Tanzania, Myanmar and South Sudan. Throughout this time he acted as a mentor and through this he learnt about the power of coaching. After training as a coach he was able to develop his skills coaching across the British Civil Service. He now runs his own practice - working with individuals looking to transition into a new career, execs looking to navigate the tricky terrain of high-tech start ups, teams looking to improve their effectiveness, and more recently with International Foundations, the UN and Universities.