Coaches inspire demoralised bankers

Thanks to the mysterious forces of the subconscious, daydreaming can illuminate a route through most types of vocational impasse.

So-called "visioning" or "image work" is one of the techniques employed by career coaches.

Disquieted by threats of redundancy and the increasing rarity of promotions, financial services professionals are turning to career coaches for inspiration.

Michael Moran, executive director of Penna Consulting, explains their appeal: "Career advancement is not a question of luck. If you do not have a clear idea of where you are now, or where you're trying to get to, you won't arrive.

"A career coach can help clarify objectives and provide a map for how to achieve them."

Career coaches evoke a kind of mid-life crisis, in which buried aspirations and secret talents are teased out and shaped into viable plans for future achievement.

"It's about thinking about where you want to be in 15 years' time, looking at the competencies that you have today and looking at the new competencies you will need to get there," says Moran.

For people used to looking no further than the next mortgage payment or bill for school fees, 15 years can be a long time. "You do get some people who haven't got a clue what they're going to do next," Moran says.

Short-sighted individuals are advised to focus on what they want to do in the next three years, instead.

It helps to be relaxed when deliberating on an ideal future career. Peter Burditt, a former banker turned coach, sends some clients out for a preliminary run around the block.

Judith Mills, an independent career coach who works with investment bankers, uses yoga techniques like deep breathing to get clients in the mood.

When it finally comes, the moment of revelation may be accompanied by the awareness that you would like your boss's job. But if you are working with a career coach, this alone will be insufficient.

Once clients have decided what they want to do, the coach will invite them to create a mental picture of precisely what it entails. Where will they be working? What kind of work will they be doing?

What is on their desk? What are they wearing? Will there be someone waiting for them when they get home? If so, who?

Burditt says decisions about future careers can only be made in the context of decisions about life as a whole.

He says: "You need to think about your fantasies. Where will you be living? What kind of relationships do you want?"

Burditt uses Gestalt therapy to help clients work through suppressed emotions and tap into their life's purpose.

Soul searching about your career may mean confronting difficult personal situations that appear best forgotten. Burditt recounts how one former client, a salesman in an investment bank, found it hard to delegate and was unable to move into a managerial position.

The problem was traced to the fact that he was the youngest in a large family and was used to acquiescing to whatever his parents said to get their attention.

Staying in an unsatisfying job prevents the need to confront psychological problems.

"Making choices is too scary for a lot of people. They get locked into frustrating jobs and lose the ability to move on," says Burditt.

However, scariness has its advantages. Fear of antiques dealing or organising walking holidays in southern Spain may be debilitating - but it can actually provide the energy needed to make the break.

Burditt advises his clients: "Feel the fear, and then do it anyway. Once you get in touch with fear, adrenaline starts to pump and the fight or flight mechanism takes hold."

Positive thinking is part of the equation.

Burditt says: "You need to be in touch with your life force, to be positive and enthusiastic as well as to be committed and have the will to see things through. Defeatist sentiments are therefore inappropriate.

Mills says: "Park your negative or traditional thoughts and think what would you really like your future to be like."

Pursuing your heart's desire will not necessarily be particularly lucrative. This can be a problem for individuals used to receiving large bonus cheques from financial services employers.

Burditt says that part of his role is helping investment banking clients to the realisation that money is not a measure of self worth, but a consolation prize for a stressful and demanding job that, in their case, may not even be particularly interesting.

Once this happens, Burditt says clients can experience a feeling of liberation.

Former corporate financiers have gone on to set up outward bound schools and diving schools, while others have become famous cartoonists and singers.

Career coaches are undoubtedly most useful for individuals contemplating a move into something entirely different.

Their usefulness in this context is measured by the fact that career changers often pay for coaches themselves.

However, career coaches are also relevant for individuals who are taking time out or moving within an organisation.

Angela Szebenyi is head of the careers centre at JP Morgan. The centre's principal function is helping individuals facing redundancy to find new jobs in the firm. Szebenyi says people can have a very fixed idea of what they are able to do.

She says: "People may have been working in project finance for the past 15 years and feel that they are unable to work anywhere else. We look at their transferable skills and try to give them a more lateral view of life."

Equally, career coaches can help impart a degree of patience for financiers awaiting the right opportunity.

One of Burditt's clients, a former private equity professional, says: "When I was made redundant, my knee-jerk reaction was to go out and get another job immediately.

"Having a coach has helped me to overcome force of habit and consider all my choices rather than jumping into something inappropriate."