It has been wonderful this week to hear how some are adapting to the world of COVID. Understanding, Adapting where appropriate and reshaping our offer is, I believe, going to be key in our future survival. But perhaps understanding what is going on locally and UK wide might be useful.

On Wednesday, I attended a chamber of commerce briefing on Q2 performance (you can access a recording here). It drew into focus the challenge that we face as we dig deep and help to pull out of the COVID pandemic. 

For interest, the 10 priorities for the West Midlands recovery are as below.

The Bank of England has also published its summary of business conditions for the same quarter.

Some of the key points were

• More companies are reopening as lockdown restrictions ease, but activity remains very weak
• Some businesses will need to borrow more when they reopen. Government schemes are helping to support that
• Redundancies are likely to increase in the coming months as demand remains weak and the Job Retention Scheme is phased out
• A number of (service-based) companies said they don’t expect to return to onsite working until the autumn, and even then only to a limited extent to ensure social distancing.

This creates hope in some cases, but also realism for the challenge that we all face.

We have seen how our industry bodies are assisting in our coaching space. For example, the ICF has an online video series that is entitled “Making the Shift to Virtual Coaching”, and the Association for Coaching has suggested some resources : –

• Coronavirus could force teams to work remotely Harvard Business Review
• Implications for business McKinsey & Company
• Advice for instructors teaching online Inside Higher Ed
• Going online in a hurry what to do and where to start The Chronicle of Higher Education
• Coaching in times of crisis ICF

I have also attended a webinar this week on converting hourly-paid customers to value-based charging models. Start by asking,

“What value do I add to the client?”

From this work out a share of this value. A big step and something that I am trying to get my head around. If you are doing this already or are interested, please get in touch as it might be worth a group call?

The next Co-Coaching is on 6th July. As it is the traditional walking co-coaching session, the session will be based around self-coaching using the street wisdom technique. If we can meet in a pub, or meet up for a walk then of course we will do that. Please do get booked on.

If you know any events that might be of interest to the community, please do register them here so that we can share the message to more.

I hope you have a fantastic Friday – and please stay safe.