Whether a manager interested in self-development or responsible for people, understanding how to leverage learning can make the difference to performance. With many organisations operating under budget constraints GXN is exploring one of the most powerful and cost-effective tools for learning – Coaching.

As coaching is considered a vital tool to today’s managers and business executives, many leaders look to proven track records provided by elite athletes and high performance sports contexts. A look at the business bookshelves reveals a plethora of books offering advice from sports coaches to business executives. So GXN went to the University of Bath, England, famous as a sports training centre to a multitude of Olympic athletes, World Champions, and gold medal winners to talk to one of the sports coaches responsible for a high performance programme.

GXN: Welcome Ian Cordwell and thank you for taking the time to share some of your coaching insights. In which context do you practise your coaching work?

Ian: I deploy my coaching work across two environments. One, as the hockey performance coach at the University of Bath, where I oversee two performance teams, the men’s and the women’s hockey programmes. I also have coaches working for me, so not only am I coaching players, I’m also coaching the coaches. It’s a very enjoyable role and one in which I am very much engaged with the players as well as the coaching personnel who also support them.

The second context which I coach is through the University of Bath’s workplace coaching programme. As part of our role we are assigned coachees and begin our
coaching relationship with a chemistry meeting to make sure that we are compatible, after which we start a six month coaching programme with them. However, sometimes
I might be asked if I can help someone manage a situation by receiving coaching from me.

Both these are supported by the University with continuous learning and development. The university is very much committed to developing staff and one of the avenues they
use to engage coaches is to give them training through the Institute of Leadership and Management’s (ILM) coaching levels.

About Ian Cordwell

He is Head Hockey Coach Team Bath Sports Development and Recreation and manages the female and men’s student hockey performance programme. Before he worked with the University as a coach for Team Bath Hockey Ian’s background was in financial services where he worked as a sales professional for the Halifax Barclays Bank before setting up his own IFA consultancy and sales coaching practice. His coaching experience moves across business delivering leadership, management, performance management and sales coaching to a number of international blue chip companies. He holds a Degree in International Sports Coaching, a qualified Level 5 ILM Coach, Workplace Coach and part of the UoB coaching network. He strongly believes all people can refocus IF they want to. He sees coaching as helping people unlock to their full potential. Ian’s experience covers motivating associates to be the best they can be in their area of work, developing talent to achieve success in and out of sport, coaching and mentoring young adults in time management, nutrition, goal setting, and drug awareness.

GXN: It appears your university employer invests in your coaching skills?

Ian: Yes, the university have CPD sessions every month with various externals invited to talk about an aspect of coaching on which we can engage. We are continually
encouraged to jump into the coaching toolkit that’s provided and keep ourselves aware of what’s going on around coaching and to keep growing. It’s not so much training, it’s
awareness and collaboration and chatting through different scenarios that we come across so that we can increase our toolbox or skillsets for the next time we work with a coachee who has different challenges. Yes, I benefit from the learning experiences.

I also believe in reflection as a coach and I encourage it in the people I coach. Reflecting and reflective practise models such as Gibbs’ ‘Reflective Cycle’ or Kolb’s

‘Experiential Learning Cycle, the ones I studied during my coaching degree play a major part in my coaching work. As well as developing my coaching skills I genuinely enjoy learning.

GXN: What approaches and/or models do you use in your coaching work, for instance, I have seen you use the GROW Model in some of your high performance coaching work?

Ian: GROW is a good model to start with, and it can help out in alot of situations. However, I use a combination of theoretical models, practical approaches to coaching
such as ‘Athlete Centred Coaching’ where you listen and encourage the coachee to find the solutions for them themselves through appropriate questioning. Then there is
‘Constraints Led Coaching’ where you set tasks, which put people out of their comfort zone. It makes them more adaptable and helps with decision making under realistic
conditions. If I’m looking at my hockey coaching ‘Game-Based’ approaches is really good.

For example, lots of small sided games, or games that we know we’ll find ourselves in the big matches. Coaching of this type enables coachees to use techniques and game-plans and experience them before matches. This coaching means they have to deal with it, deal with real-world pressure. I would really encourage coaches to use real life scenarios so that coachees are able to reflect on the situation they are in.

So to answer your question, you don’t necessarily have to say “I’m going to deploy this particular method, or use this particular model.” Invariably, you use bits from different models because you are steering in a direction to help the coachee achieve highperformance.

GXN: It seems from your answer it’s a combination elements. Situation-based and shaped by the relationship between the real world and coaching, Is that because you see the relationship between a coaching session and the real world as one and the same?

Ian: Coaching is basically getting someone from where they are now to where they need or want to be. Being a coach is about enabling people to experience different things and then help them reflect on their performance and what they are doing within the safety of a coaching session. This is where the coach helps – coaches help coachees move in the right direction. Giving coachees real performance ‘experience’ is better than telling them about it or showing lots of examples in writing. Experiencing and learning about performance by reflecting-in and reflecting-on performance, and then coming up with an action plan incorporating intentional performance change is what I am looking for when I coach.

You know, it’s very easy for coaches to get carried away because they have received training as a coach, and built skills from the courses they have attended. Don’t hit your
coachee with a coaching session with too much information. – keep it simple. You can only do this with clear communication and an understanding that everyone is different.

GXN: What are your three top coaching tips and techniques to coaches looking to produce impactful and inspiring coaching sessions?

Ian: Firstly, I put the athlete first – in the centre. I focus on their needs, their motivations, what development they want, what type of feedback they want to receive. It is really important to build a relationship and try to understand the individual first. And treat them as people. From an athlete point of view, we’re always looking at winning a game, so we coach and work to win the game. There’s processes in place and basically getting to know players and find out how they tick. You want to find out a little bit about them, what actually they do, what they enjoy doing, what they don’t like, almost a little bit of profiling. And then you can make sure that you’re using the appropriate language and motivation to try and get them to do the work for themselves because they’re motivated to do it, because you’re showing that you’re putting them and their performance first.

Secondly, performance is a complex phenomenon so I try to make sure there’s a lot of clarity to reduce the complexity. Therefore, I recommend planning your coaching sessions. You should come away from every single coaching session having clear objectives to a plan so that you know the coaching plan has a purpose – an outcome. Whilst you have a clear plan, be prepared to be flexible and come off the plan, that is, respond to the coachee and where they take it. For instance, I have delivered hockey coaching sessions where I have a detailed plan of which aspect of performance I want to coach and then the session begins and it might go a different way. This is because it’s player-led and the coaching session moves in a different way yet, the outcome is often and surprisingly what you wanted anyway. So let it go and just keep focusing on what the objectives are, on your plan or your intent. Essentially, you need to be narrowing on outcome-focused coaching. So you know exactly what you want. Be specific, realistic. Make sure the objectives are measurable and align your coaching work to achieve the outcome.

A big part of this is checking back. This means helping coachees to know what they’ve learnt and why it matters to them and then keep recapping on that. Make sure you don’t move on to the next thing until you’ve really explored what the coachee is learning. Don’t tell, encourage by open and closed questions. You can do this through recapping and asking open-ended questions. Obviously open questions will involve an outcome so that you gain understanding of what learning is taking place. Let them do the talking, be silent at times. Observe their body language. And don’t be afraid to pus; to push through to the stretch zone – pushing through with challenging questions that encourage reflection and thinking. Let the coachee come up with their own answers by just giving them the time to think. But certainly making sure that it’s performance related feedback. Which moves onto my final point.

And finally, give them timely, relevant feedback. And again, just come in with questions to make sure they understand. Giving feedback and listening to the coacheee means you can adapt the session. This is developmental and motivational feedback, but keep it within the parameters that you’ve agreed because the coachee is driving it, but just make sure that you’re working within those performance plans. Clear outcomes make sure the sessions are relevant and that you are responsive – a responsive coach by asking questions and really getting in deep.

And whilst you are looking out for them, don’t forget to set up a reflective process for yourself. Reflect on your coaching; after each session ask yourself what went well,
what could have gone better, what will I change for next time? Seek feedback from others on your coaching.

GXN: So there are the three techniques for coaching that is performance focused – relevant, realistic, and responsive to the individual. Thank you Ian,

In conversation was lead by Dr. Georgina Lack, GXN in conversation with Ian Cordwell, Head of Hockey at University of Bath in May 2026.

About the GXN EDP In conversation
The GXN In Conversation is a series of articles provided in support of the GXN executive development programme (EDP). Positioned alongside ongoing podcasts they offer a convenient, accessible learning tool for busy business executives in the GXN member network. The GXN podcasts and GXN In Conversation articles help members engage with relevant content from leaders, practitioners, and topic-relevant guests.

Want to learn more about Coaching?
High-performance coaching in business bridges the gap between elite sports psychology and corporate leadership. It focuses on emotional resilience, execution, and building sustainable business cultures. Here are some interesting articles, podcasts and learning tools to explore: The High Performance Coach – Hosted by Joe Parish, this podcast offers tactical episodes on how to break past income ceilings and scale without burning out.

The High Performance Podcast – Jake Humphrey and Professor Damian Hughes interview elite figures (from CEOs to sports managers) about the psychology behind excellence. Coaching for Leaders (podcast) – Features practical, actionable advice on growing teams and establishing purposeful, high-performance work cultures.

Harvard Business Review have a catalogue of Must Reads full of accessible material on ‘High Performance’ and ‘Coaching’. Just search
their website.

For more information about GXN reach out to Michael Freter