Coaching for Impact: The Needs-Based Approach

Who This Workshop Is For:

This program is designed for professionals who work with others, including:

• Team leaders and managers seeking to strengthen communication and coaching skills.
• HR professionals aiming to build trust and foster psychological safety.
• People and culture practitioners who want to create workplaces grounded in empathy and accountability.
• Anyone tasked with embedding a coaching mindset or culture in their organisation.

No prior coaching experience is required.

Overview

This practical workshop provides the tools and skills needed to approach a range of conversations in the workplace. You will walk away with an understanding of a coaching mindset, ways to avoid common pitfalls in challenging conversations, and a toolkit to take coaching into a range of professional settings.

Needs-Based Coaching introduces a practical, human-centered framework for leading more meaningful conversations at work. Grounded in the principles of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), this approach helps you understand what truly drives people, enabling you to coach, support, and lead with confidence, empathy, and precision.

Across two immersive days, you’ll learn to facilitate conversations that move beyond advice-giving and into genuine dialogue, where people feel seen, motivated, and empowered to take ownership.

Expected outcomes for you and your organisation:

The coaching skills developed in this workshop go beyond better conversations. Leaders who coach effectively create environments where people stay, collaborate, and deliver their best work. The results you can expect: fewer breakdowns, stronger alignment, and projects that move forward with shared purpose and accountability.

By the end of this workshop, you will:

• Have a solid foundation in needs-based coaching principles and techniques, enabling you to spot and respond to underlying needs and motivators.
• Handle challenging conversations more effectively: understand and avoid common pitfalls (e.g., jumping to solutions, ignoring underlying needs, reacting rather than pausing) and instead guide the conversation toward mutual clarity and shared ownership.
• Be able to use tools for supporting others with empathy, structure, and intention.
• Apply a clear coaching framework: move from dialogue to action by using structured steps (listening, asking powerful questions, aligning on values and purpose, agreeing next steps).
• Build confidence in facilitating meaningful dialogue: you will be ready to lead conversations where people feel seen, heard and empowered to take ownership.
• Have a deeper understanding of human motivation and relational dynamics.
• Build a clear plan for integrating these practices into your professional context.

Learning Approach

This is a highly interactive and experiential workshop, not a lecture series. You will learn through concise theory sessions, live demonstrations, and guided practice in pairs and groups. Reflection and feedback are built in throughout to ensure immediate relevance to your professional reality.

Program Outline

Day 1: Foundations of Coaching

• The core attributes of a coaching mindset
• Asking powerful and generative questions
• Aligning conversations with goals and outcomes
  

Day 2: Skills in Action

• The eight essential coaching skills
• A step-by-step process to help others move through obstacles
• Holding difficult conversations with clarity and care
• Full practice sessions integrating all skills
  

Practical Information

• Format: Two full days, in person
• Certificate: Participants receive a certificate of completion, which may contribute to the ICF ACC portfolio pathway and certification with the Center for Nonviolent Communication.
• Times & dates: 2-3 February, 9:30-17:30 both days
• Location: Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, 103 Oriental Parade, Wellington
• Morning, afternoon tea and lunch are included - please get in touch with any dietary requirements
• If you have any questions, please contact us directly: anna@needsbasedcoaching.com

Meet the trainer: Pernille Plantener

Coach (ICF PCC), Trainer in Nonviolent Communication CNVC CT), Resonant Healing Practitioner

Pernille Plantener brings over a decade of experience in coaching, facilitation, and emotional healing to her work with individuals and organizations. As a certified coach at PCC level and a trainer in Nonviolent Communication (NVC), she has supported hundreds of professionals, including managers and HR leaders, in developing relational intelligence, emotional resilience, and coaching skills that promote trust and transformation.

Her approach integrates science with heart. Pernille’s work is rooted in the belief that human connection is the foundation of effective leadership, and that healing and growth are possible even in the most complex organizational environments.

She is the founder of BusinessByHeart and Needs-Based Coaching, and a faculty member with Leadership That Works India, where she contributes to ICF-accredited coach training programs. Her teaching style is warm, clear, and grounded in lived experience—from her early career in organic farming and consulting to her current life in a permaculture-based community in Denmark.

Pernille is known for helping professionals and coaches:

• Navigate emotional complexity with clarity and compassion
• Build coaching capacity within organizations
• Create cultures of psychological safety and mutual respect
• Align leadership with values and purpose

Join Us

If you’re ready to enhance the quality of your conversations and lead with greater clarity, empathy, and impact, this workshop offers the tools and mindset to help you do just that.