About
Who I am
I am an executive coach with 20+ years’ experience of individual coaching, team coaching and designing and delivering leadership and talent programmes. My clients range from young talents to senior leaders working in organisations that include the BBC, Pearson, McDonald's, SMOL and On Purpose.
Kevin Hitchmough
Qualifications and Accreditation
I have 24 years experience in organisations as a result of holding senior positions in Unilever, The Body Shop, L’Oréal and the not-for-profit sector. I have been coaching individuals and teams since 2005 and I gained my Postgraduate Certificate in Business and Executive Coaching in 2009. I am an EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council) Accredited Coach at Senior Practioner level. I am a skilled and experienced in using the MBTi (Myers Briggs), EQi (Emotional Intelligence), Firo-B and Clifton Strengthsfinder tools..
My Approach
Meaning and momentum for leaders and teams.
My clients value my curiosity, care, wisdom and humour. They talk about my willingness to say what no one else will, and my ability to ask the hard, breakthrough questions, warmly and in a straightforward manner. I meet teams and individuals where they are and create a safe space so that I can bring both support and challenge. I help them understand their inner stories and to be their best selves in their organisational context.
Coaching, Leadership Development and Teams
Coaching
Recent client engagements:
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Supporting a leader's transition to an executive committee position.
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Building a senior leader's emotional intelligence and improving their relationships.
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Coaching a business unit head to improve their leadership impact, with the improvement validated by a narrative 360.
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Improving the influence and resilience of a rising middle manager responsible for a key product launch
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Working with a young talent on their sense of purpose, strengths and career path.
Leadership Development
Recent client work includes:
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Designing a management and leadership development offer for a 20,000 employee organisation.
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Designing and delivering a leadership programme for a FTSE 100 business.
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Coaching on a talent programme for a global market leader.
Important principles of my approach to leadership and talent programmes are:
1. Building authentic, energised leaders who play to strengths and who are on purpose.
2. Ensuring that the leadership model is tailored to the organisational context, strategy and the specific learning needs of the target managers/leaders.
3. Distributing leadership through the team /organisation.
Team Coaching
The following themes are common in our experience of improving team performance.
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Setting purpose and creating a shared approach in the context of who the team serves.
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Building trust and establishing a healthy conflict approach.
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Intra and inter team cooperation.
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Improving engagement and ways of working.
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Understanding their "team type" and optimising communication and decision making.
Case Studies
Executive
Coaching
Executive
Coaching
Executive Coaching
"Coaching senior leaders is not always the easiest thing to do, it requires resilience and a lot of bespoke thinking on your toes. Kevin has been able to do just that for one of our senior leaders and I am really pleased to have been a part of this journey with them. We have seen the change we hoped for and continue to build relationships that are turning out to be fruitful for all concerned. A huge thank you to Kevin for making the time, for his continued leadership and commitment, and managing many key stakeholder such as myself in HR." HR Business Partner, FTSE 100 Business
Leadership Development
A bespoke leadership/ management development track
Leadership Development
A bespoke leadership/ management development track
A bespoke leadership/management development track for a multi-billion £ turnover business.
An existing management development track was in place with 4 learning programmes supporting people from first time manager until they became a Head of Function. Changes in consumer and employee needs were placing significant new demands on managers.
All programmes needed work, for example re-aligning to leadership transition principles**. The most significant work was carried out at Head of Function level. Learning needs were diagnosed through extensive interviewing and a thematic analysis. Six important capabilities were identified and a new 9 mth learning journey was designed with authentic leadership at its heart.
Post re-design, all programme evaluations far exceeded the company and external benchmarks for satisfaction and business impact. The biggest improvement was seen at Head of Function level. Head of Function behaviour change was captured by Level 3 Kirkpatrick data and through the storytelling of participant achievement stories.
** The Leadership Pipeline, Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel.
Team
Coaching
Inter and intra team improvement
Team
Coaching
Inter and intra team improvement
Team Coaching
Intra-team
• "Unlocking" a support department in a large multi-national who were struggling with their identity. Helping them understand their team's characteristics and their customer's expectations. Supporting them to set a new purpose and appropriate team ways of working.
• Using the MBTi tool to facilitate a discussion of relationship issues in a senior marketing team. Shining a light on the intention behind the leader’s actions and generating simple actions to decrease pressure across the team.
Inter-team
• Diffusing conflict between two critical teams in a global retailer.
• Facilitating a marketing team and a sales team to agree shared priorities and cool off process “hot” spots.
Culture and Organisational Change
Culture and Organisational Change
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, Various, often attributed to P Drucker.
I have been lucky to work for 3 culture powered companies and to be International Organisational Culture Director for one of them. Organisations are complex human systems and thankfully we now use emerging, iterative, test-and- learn change approaches. How realistic is it to change culture? Well that could be a very long discussion. Below, I have featured 2 initiatives that did work. Do get in contact if you would like to discuss these or other organisational change projects I have worked on.
• A global, team-based, participative, culture change programme to align mind-sets and behaviours following a restructure.
• A bespoke induction smartphone app allowing newcomers to explore corporate culture and how they were adapting to the organisation's predominant strengths and accompanying downsides.
