Coaching in business has been around since the early 90s, but surprisingly, it hasn’t evolved a lot since then. ilume is changing the way coaching is done via its unique approach which takes into consideration more dimensions of an individual. Coaching is well known as a behavioural tool, but at ilume we are no longer satisfied with the notion that this will provide all the answers to leaders of business in today’s more complex and ambiguous world.

Most coaching in the past and even today is based on behavioural change and coaching to change certain behaviours of a leader, but at ilume we think that is too one dimensional. Our leaders are made up of much more than just their behaviours! Our leaders are facing into greater uncertainty and can often feel as thought they are in over their heads and are facing a developmental challenging of growing a bigger mind.

Consequently, ilume decided to take a different approach, and in 2010, developed a robust, evidence-based coaching methodology that examines a person’s hidden dimensions that brings with it lasting developmental change and a recognition of a person’s true potential capacity for further growth. We call this approach MINDSET28.

We have been delivering this work in Australasia for over seven years and have established a new paradigm in executive development that high-performing organisations are talking about. Those who have worked with us tell us they have become smarter, more agile and ultimately have competitive advantage.

Prepare to be challenged – ilume provides a developmental tool that weaves together all the dimensions necessary for excellence in executive leadership and anyone coming on the journey is going to find out where they are placed right now in regards to how well placed they are to do the job.

All leaders must be prepared to commit to high-performing change – it’s part of what you sign up to in accepting the role. The work with ilume develops the leader quantitatively and qualitatively, so commitment over a period of time is essential. This is not a quick fix strategy to developing the best leaders.

Ultimately, particularly in the residential team leadership program, they will see increased drive, greater self awareness, clearer strategic thinking and a path to long-term life balance. Instead of life balance and high performance business competing against one another, it starts to work in harmony. Clients who work with us say it’s simple – they call it awesome transformational change.

MINDSET28 takes a powerful and holistic view of the individual by balancing qualitative multi-dimensional frames through using three dimensions: cognitive, social emotional and behavioural, rather than the traditional one-dimensional approach (behaviour only). Our promise is to show the executive the potential of growing a bigger mind and a pathway to achieve that.

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We think this question can be best answered by the CEO of one of ilume’s foundation clients, PwC New Zealand. CEO and Managing Partner Mark Averill attributes their high performance culture to taking the majority of their partners through the MINDSET28 leadership development program.

A big strategic move for PwC as the program asks for the partners, who are the leaders and rainmakers of the business, to come away from the day-to-day delivery of client work and develop their leadership on a six-day residential program.

That said, Mark acknowledges that it has definitely given them sustainable competitive market advantage and the program had a hand in him eventually becoming the CEO of the organisation.

The empowerment that we saw when we spoke to some very technical partners at PWC really gave us the reassurance that this is the approach we should be using with more CEOs and senior leaders.

There are many development tools available to businesses today but nearly all are competency or behavioural-based assessments and for an organisation that relies entirely on talent and high performance culture, which PWC are, the MINDSET28 approach has proven to be the most effective.

Of the various personality profiling tools MINDSET28 is the only one that doesn’t put you in a box forever and we think that is really important. We have personally been through many of these assessments and they always leave you in a specific category for life, but that’s just not realistic.

Actually, it’s a worrying message that leaders are unable to develop any further. MINDSET28 is a developmental tool, not a “putting you in a box” tool, so the difference is that for the first time it gives people a pathway for continuous improvement rather than just telling a person who they are and how they will be forever.