Coaching and Communication Skills for Senior Researchers

Learn how to have more human conversations and strengthen relationships in every aspect of your life as a researcher

Sarah Creevey - Coaching Skills for Researchers

As AI transforms the research industry, technical tasks are becoming increasingly automated. Yet the skills that create trust, uncover meaningful insight, develop people and influence decisions remain fundamentally human.

Having a good or a bad conversation can affect the outcome of a project, the productivity of a team or the result of a pitch. In a world where information is abundant and increasingly generated by technology, the ability to listen deeply, ask insightful questions and facilitate productive conversations becomes even more valuable.

Coaching skills provide a practical framework for developing these capabilities. By using coaching approaches in day-to-day interactions, researchers can build stronger relationships with colleagues and clients, navigate ambiguity more effectively and create the conditions for deeper thinking and better decision-making.

Many of the skills involved in coaching are already strengths of great researchers. Effective listening, curiosity, questioning and sense-making remain essential human capabilities that AI cannot fully replicate. Researchers draw on these skills every day to deliver projects, but do not always use them to their best advantage in client, stakeholder and team conversations.

A few examples of where coaching skills can aid deeper conversations for research managers are:

• Helping clients and stakeholders think more clearly about business priorities, project objectives and research questions
• Developing staff, both within formal appraisal/review setting and during more informal, everyday delegation, collaboration and communication of tasks
• Achieving a deeper level of insight within interviews through using advanced listening and questioning skills
• Designing research materials, including discussion/ interview guides and projective techniques, that ask pertinent, human-centred questions
• Applying critical thinking and analysis to the use of AI-based research tools and outcomes

Learning the key skills used in coaching is enough to provide experienced researchers with the confidence to start having better, human-centric conversations in every aspect of work – making them better researchers, better people managers and better client handlers.

Learning Outcomes/Learning Objectives

• Understand what coaching is, how it can help you hold better conversations and why it’s an increasingly valuable skill in an AI-enabled workplace
• Know how to use simple coaching models to hold more constructive conversations with colleagues, clients and stakeholders
• Develop advanced listening skills to help you be a better manager and a more critical researcher
• Learn new questioning techniques – including the power of not asking ‘why’ questions – to improve your skills as a researcher
• Become better at working and communicating with people at all levels, from respondents, to colleagues to clients
• Develop the curiosity and critical thinking skills needed to complement AI tools and generate deeper human insight

In the final part of the course, we will look at the everyday scenarios where coaching skills could be applied. There will be a brief pre-task sent to you before the course to help you think about some of these scenarios and ensure you get the best out of your learning.

Who will benefit?

• Researchers with at least three years’ experience, ideally with managerial and/or client management responsibilities, or progressing towards this
• Those interested in developing both their management and research skills together

The course is mainly designed for those with agency-side experience, but client-side researchers are welcome as the skills learned are applicable to all.

Trainer Biography

Sarah Creevy is an ICF-accredited coach with over 10 years’ coaching, training and facilitation experience. She has a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology, a certificate in Applied Neuroscience and is a certified Strengths Profile Coach. She has coached employees at all levels, from entry-level graduates to senior leaders, across multiple sectors including media, education, financial services, hospitality and public sector, focussing primarily on leadership development.

Prior to training as a coach, Sarah had a 10-year career as a qual-quant researcher with experience at big players such as Kantar as well as boutique agencies. She feels passionately about helping people to get more from their jobs, and loves helping researchers especially to learn how to use their existing skills in a new way in order to do this.

Outside of work, Sarah has two young children who keep her very busy, but she also enjoys walking, Pilates and, if she finds the time, taking comedy classes.

Testimonials

"A great introduction to coaching techniques"

Angharad Davies - Opinion Research Services (ORS), May 2023

"Really informative content delivered in a relax, friendly way."

Pete Schofield - Virgin Media O2, November 2022

"Really helped me think differently about how to deliver coaching conversations"

Amelie - HMRC, November 2021

Venue

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