Business and performance coaching has become popular over time in major cities in the UK, and Andrew Holland is bringing Effectus Coaching and Development to the South West. He explains how businesses and individuals can benefit from his coaching, experience and expertise.
“It’s important in any business that people address all areas of their life.” Andrew works on, what he calls, “The people element of business coaching” which makes him stand out in this industry.
For example, a company might have a sales process which worked at first but is now failing, and Andrew will address the application, rather than the process itself.
“I work with people on application, and that can be everything from sales through to customer service, through to time-management, stress management, leadership, management and planning – that’s what I do.”
Andrew has always had a competitive, can-do attitude, and has been a sportsman all his life.
“When I was really young my uncle ran a football team, and the team that he ran were a few years older than I was. They were under 13’s, I was about 8 or 9. I used to go training with them and, realistically, the physical difference between those ages is immense, but I used to go every week. I would get in there and every now and again I’d come on as a sub. When I went on as a sub there was always a big reaction from the people stood on the side and I loved it! What that did was create this immense, competitive spirit in me and I used to love being able to take the ball off the bigger lads. I could compete.”
Born and bought up in Warwickshire, Andrew joined the Navy at the age of 17 and spent 26 years working with them as a physical trainer. He was selected early on to play representative sport, and this spurred him on to study for a sports psychology diploma in 1999-2000.
“It really started to slot things into place about performance. What I then started to notice was that it wasn’t just about sport – I started to make the connection between sport and business and the way we do it. I was still in the Navy, and the military is all about production, all about efficiency, and all about working together as a team.
“This really intrigued me and I began to study the concepts and applications of team and individual development, completing a Certificate in Education; Coaching, Leadership, Management and Development qualifications as well as studying to become a Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming and Hypnotherapy and most recently gaining authorisation as a Corporate Plus Coach on the YB12 International Coaching Framework.
“Alongside my role as a physical trainer, I also qualified as an Adventure Training Instructor and as a result went away on a lot of major expeditions. I always had a role in those expeditions developing the teams. The last one I did was a medical services expedition to the Himalayas, and my role was to do all of the training. But it wasn’t just training people to be qualified in the activities, it also involved bringing the teams together, working with teams and looking at configurations of teams, so it was successful.
“Out of 45 people who went on the expedition, 38 people stood on top of a 6000 metre plus peak, which, realistically, when we first started, there was only going to be a summit team of about 15. That was down to them and not me, but it was the development process they went through as teams which got them into that mindset of, “We can do it”.
“That expedition team is no different to an engineering team, they still have objectives that they want to achieve. Depending how the team gel and work together will depend on the efficiency. If people have investment in them, at a people level, then the people are going to be happier, they’ll be more prepared to produce the goods. Salary is important, but motivation to do a job is a bigger drive than salary once the basic salary needs are met. Businesses keep those people and the productivity goes up. You create a win-win situation where you have much happier staff who are treated well and who want to stay. If you can make your workforce feel a part of and fully understand “WHY” you do what you do, they will belong to it, take ownership and go that extra mile to generate success, this makes a huge difference.”
Andrew not only works with businesses, he also works with individuals on a more personal level. In the past he’s helped someone start working to overcome their problem with alcohol, and another person had a severe phobia of hospitals, but Andrew worked with her to deal with this and she recently underwent surgery, proving that the coaching had been a huge success. One of his current clients is a professional sportsman from the USA.
Back to his business coaching, and he believes that success shouldn’t necessarily be judged by a bank balance.
“One of the biggest things is getting people to appreciate that success doesn’t necessarily mean 60 hours a week.” He agrees that sometimes this is unavoidable, particularly for business owners, but it’s about recognising WHY you’re doing it!
“Do I want to work my socks off now, not enjoy my kids growing up and be at loggerheads with my wife? Brilliant, I could retire at 55 and potentially have made a whole heap of money, but at what cost?”
Andrew moved to Saltash and spends as much quality time with his 8-year-old twin children and wife, Amanda, as he can.
“Who wouldn’t want to live down here? I would never say never to anything, but I cannot see myself going to live back in the Midlands. I love living in the South West, and living where I live in Cornwall, and the fact that within 20 minutes I could be on Dartmoor, or be walking on Whitsand Bay beach. I’ve been all over the world and I’ve never set foot on a beach which has been better than Whitsand Bay. That’s why I want to live down here.”
“From a business perspective, doing what I do, I’d be much better living in London if I was judging my success on finance.” But he continues by asking, “Why wouldn’t I want to live down here?”
“My goals over the next 12 months are to grow my business in the South West. I want to grow it in and around Plymouth and then spread that out into the South West. Coming from the military, I developed these skills about what to do and how to do it, and the results I’m getting are really good.”
Andrew is incredibly passionate about people and helping them to develop themselves. He often hears excuses such as, ‘I can’t do that,’ and ‘That will never happen’.
“Who says you can’t do it? What is it that’s stopping you, or what is it going on in your life that tells you that you can’t?
“I will work with them and provide them with the skills to remain self-disciplined, to recognise when they’re procrastinating, to set the right goals, to look at living life into the future rather than the past, and we will do this by creating a compelling vision together.”
Andrew can assist in many areas of a business, which makes it difficult to pin-point exactly what he does. “There is not one thing that I do, because I work with people.”
“It makes a difference in their lives and that’s what I want to do.” Perhaps it’s time to take a step back from your business and your goals and ask yourself, “Why do I do what I do?”
Call Andrew on –
07775942170
Email –
andrew@effectusdevelopment.com
Visit –
www.effectusdevelopment.com