Hello, I am Roach the Coach and I am your guide through the Coaching Chronicles. There are 4,500 species of us cockroaches so we are well placed, across the globe, and across time, to tell you about coaching…

As we know, Queen Victoria was the longest reigning British monarch, and one of the most celebrated. Few, though, know of her links with coaching.
Born on 24 May 1819, a Gemini, she described her childhood as melancholic. Her life was one of strict rules instigated by her protective mother, who named this elaborate set of protocols: the Kensington System.
Victoria became increasingly interested in coaching and mentoring through watching her team of tutors and governesses manage her timetable for learning and development. She saw that a huge amount of co-ordination was required and that there had to be a set of common values and rules that bounded them, otherwise they would appear off message and jeopardise their role in the royal household.
Her fast ascension to the throne meant that she was only 18 when she became Queen – a lot of responsibility at a young age. She married Albert and they were a happy couple, both in their public and private life.
Victoria was a very observant Queen – she was one of the first to use journals as a way of noting her reflections and observations. She wrote, on average, 1,500 words a day 
and amassed 122 volumes in her lifetime – almost the same number required for re-accreditation with one of the professional coaching bodies.
Victoria is famous for declaring, “We are not amused”, but this story has been misreported through the years. The line actually resulted from a visit she made to a town outside Banbury to open a hospital. In a speech, the mayor of the town said that in honour of the Queen, they would name a road after her and announced Victoria Mews to be open. The Queen was not happy about this and replied: “We are happy to have a road or street named after one, but we are not a mews.”
After her beloved Prince Albert died, Victoria isolated herself from her public and hid away in Balmoral Castle, where she was befriended by the ghillie, John Brown.
Brown was an active coach and he frequently coached lateral hires into the royal household to increase their speed to experience.
To help with her grief, Brown would take the Queen out on her horse for long walks and discuss the state of the coaching profession. Brown mentioned that, at a recent coach networking event, he had met a number of coaches who were choosing not to be supervised so they could save some money. He recognised that Victoria was a person of strict standards of personal morality and believed that the coaching fraternity desperately needed some standards or it was in danger of falling into disrepute. He gently suggested she could help, as her high standards and adherence to rules was something he admired, and that more people should follow.
Victoria thought about these issues and reflected on her experience. Having nine children meant she developed an acute awareness of the standards and protocols required to keep things how she wanted them – not unlike her experience of the Kensington System when she was a child.
Victoria saw some similarities between a group of nannies caring for children and coaches caring for the development of their clients. She dug out her journals and started to list some of the rules she had noted as necessary to keep the nannies in check, but still give them freedom to operate. By reflecting on her experiences, Victoria decided to write to the many coaches she knew, to suggest they think about what protocols, rules and competencies might bind them together.
The coaches were intrigued by this and invited Her Majesty to suggest some to them. Victoria thought hard about this and decided to create a list of nine, in honour of her nine children. To ensure the coaches would not forget these rules, she used the first initial of each of her children:

Victoria – Vision who you are and 
raise your self-awareness
Albert – Agree contract
Alice – Allay fears; build trust
Alfred – Always listen
Helena – Helpful questions
Louise – Look into everything
Arthur – Achieve goals and actions
Leopold – Leverage tools and models
Beatrice – Bottom out value 
through evaluation

These have stood the test of time and now form the basis of most coaching bodies’ professional codes. So, the coaching profession can sleep safe in the knowledge that they have royal standards to bind them together. n

l Sam Humphrey, partner and head of the Coaching Practice Group, Møller PSF Group, Cambridge

Coaching at Work, Volume 9, Issue 3